Isaiah 41:19

אֶתֵּן בַּמִּדְבָּר אֶרֶז שִׁטָּה וַהֲדַס וְעֵץ שָׁמֶן אָשִׂים בָּעֲרָבָה בְּרוֹשׁ תִּדְהָר וּתְאַשּׁוּר יַחְדָּו׃

19 I will plant in the desert a cedar, an acacia, a myrtle, and an olive tree. I will set a cypress in the desert; the fir and the pine together.

אֶתֵּן בַּמִּדְבָּר אֶרֶז שִׁטָּה וַהֲדַס וְעֵץ שָׁמֶן I will plant in the desert a cedar, an acacia, a myrtle, and an olive tree. Names of plants and herbs in the Bible are not always certain, but here the identities are a little more positive than in some places.

אֶרֶז "cedar" is the familiar evergreen tree. The cedars of Lebanon approached 90 feet in height. The UBS monograph on the Fauna and Flora of the Bible waxes almost poetic regarding this tree: "Its long branches spread out horizontally from the trunk, and the leaves are dark and evergreen, glittering like silver in the sun" (p. 108).

שִׁטָּה "acacia" is the identification of this word which was simply transliterated "the shittah tree" in the King James Version. This is a short evergreen tree (10-15 feet tall) with yellow flowers. The wood was considered good for building. The plural of this word, shittim, is often a place name. Perhaps these names could be thought of as "the pines" in our way of thinking today. The wood of this wide little tree was used for the ark.

הֲדַס "myrtle" is another evergreen, often no more than a bush (4-5 feet tall), that favors valleys and wetter soil. Myrtle branches were used in making booths for the Feast of Tabernacles (Neh. 8:15).

עֵץ שָׁמֶן "olive tree" is another evergreen native to Canaan of a very different type. The twisted trunk and half dozen main branches can reach a height of 75 feet. The bell0-shaped yellow flowers are very aromatic.

אָשִׂים בָּעֲרָבָה בְּרוֹשׁ I will set a cypress in the desert; בְּרוֹשׁ might be "cypress," although this is a much more uncertain word, despite its frequent mention in Scripture. It appears to be a kind of pine tree like the Aleppo Pine, a cedar, or the juniper, although the juniper does not fit the context of Psalm 104:17. An Mp note says the בְּרוֹשׁ occurs six times "written this way." The six are Deut. 32:32; Isaiah 41:19; 55:13; 60:13; Hosea 14:9 and Zechariah 11:2. This is a confusing and unhelpful Masoretic note, since the Deuteronomy passage involves the word רוֹשׁ "head" and not the term for the tree at all. Mm 1237 clearly refers to the word רוֹשׁ, although most of the words are בְּרוֹשׁ, so the reference is to the form regardless of the meaning.

תִּדְהָר וּתְאַשּׁוּר יַחְדָּו the fir and the pine together. תִּדְהָר I would just call a "fir," although it is probably more specifically the Brutian Pine, an evergreen conifer that grows to be anything from ten to thirty feet tall. תִּדְהָר, the Mp tells us, occurs twice (Isaiah 41:19; 60:13). The תְאַשּׁוּר "pine" could well be the Box Tree, a short tree (18 feet) with very hard wood. It is also mentioned in Isaiah 60:13 and Ezekiel 27:6. Another Mp note says that תְאַשּׁוּר also occurs just twice (cf. Isaiah 60:13, were it also includes the waw). A more useful note might have indicated that the entire phrase, בְּרוֹשׁ תִּדְהָר וּתְאַשּׁוּר יַחְדָּו, occurs in both places, down to the accent pattern (tebir-merka-tipha) until Isaiah 60:13's atnach, which of course is sof pasuq here in 41:19.

Isaiah is partly echoing the imagery of a prophecy by Hosea with a similar picture but a different meaning: "When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert" (Hosea 9:10). There, the point is that when Israel entered into the covenant with God at Mount Sinai, it was something no other nation had ever done. Here, the point is that God's rescue of mankind is something that could have come from nowhere else.