The tree, and what was hung on it

The Bible opens in a garden with two trees and closes in a city with one.

Two trees, named in the same sentence, and the whole of human history turns on which one got eaten from.

After that, the tree of life goes out of reach. Cherubim and a flaming sword guard the way to it — the first sword in Scripture, set between people and the thing that would have kept them alive.

And then the word disappears from the story for a very long time, until it turns up somewhere nobody would look for it: in a legal clause about executed criminals.

Anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. That is the sentence, and for fifteen centuries it meant exactly what it says.

Paul picks that clause up and does something with it that no one had done before.

He does not soften the verse. He does not argue that it should not apply. He takes the curse at full strength and says that is precisely what happened, on purpose, and that the curse landed on Him instead of on us.

Peter uses the same word rather than the ordinary term for cross: He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree. Luke has Peter say it twice in Acts. The apostles keep reaching past the Roman execution device for the Hebrew word, because the word carries Genesis and Deuteronomy in it.

And then the last two chapters of the Bible open the garden again, inside a city.

The tree that was guarded is unguarded. It is on both sides of the river, bearing twelve crops, and its leaves are for the healing of the nations — the nations, plural, which is a long way from two people in a garden.

One tree lost. One tree cursed. One tree in the middle of a street with fruit every month and no sword in front of it.

One more turn in the thread is worth naming. In Eden the tree was the site of the test, and eating from the wrong one was the whole failure. At Calvary the tree is the site of the remedy, and nothing is eaten — something is given. And in the city the tree is fruitful every month, freely, with no prohibition attached to it at all. Three trees, three postures toward eating, and the last one has no fence.

That is the shape of the whole Book in three pieces of wood.

Trace it: Genesis 2:9, 16–17; 3:22–24; Deuteronomy 21:22–23; Joshua 8:29 and 10:26 for the practice; Galatians 3:13; Acts 5:30; 10:39; 1 Peter 2:24; Revelation 2:7; 22:2, 14, 19.

The Hebrew word ets means both tree and wood, which is why the same term covers a living tree and the beam a body was hung on. The Greek xylon has the same double range, and the New Testament writers exploit it deliberately.

Deuteronomy 21 is not describing crucifixion, which did not yet exist in that form. It describes hanging a body on a tree after execution as a public display, and it requires burial the same day so the land is not defiled. Paul’s use of it is an argument from the principle rather than from the practice.

Note the reversal in the guarding. Genesis 3 posts cherubim and a flaming sword to keep the way to the tree of life. Revelation 22 has the tree in the open street with a river running past it, and the next verse says there will no longer be any curse. The guard is not overpowered; the reason for it is gone.

The healing of the nations in Revelation 22:2 uses a word from which we get therapeutic. Whatever else the last chapter describes, it describes something ongoing and restorative rather than merely static bliss.

There is a curiosity in Revelation 2:7 worth chasing: the promise to the one who overcomes is the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God — and paradise is the Greek Old Testament’s word for the garden in Genesis. The letter to Ephesus reaches back to Eden and forward to the city in a single sentence.

Look it upH6086 עֵץ ets, tree or wood · H7045 קְלָלָה qelalah, curse · G3586 ξύλον xylon, wood or tree · G2671 κατάρα katara, curse

Where this touchesGenesis 2–3 · Deuteronomy 21:22–23 · Galatians 3:10–14 · 1 Peter 2:24 · Revelation 22:1–5. The seed, the lamb and the blood were the earlier threads; the veil, the city and the water are still ahead.