Psa 78:47 He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore-fig trees with driving rain.

Amo 7:14 Amos replied to Amaziah, “I was not a prophet by profession. No, I was a herdsman who also took care of sycamore fig trees.

1Ki 10:27 The king made silver as plentiful in Jerusalem as stones; cedar was as plentiful as sycamore fig trees are in the lowlands. See also 2Ch 1:15 and 2Ch 9:27

1Ch 27:28 Baal-Hanan the Gederite was in charge of the olive and sycamore trees in the lowlands; Joash was in charge of the storehouses of olive oil.

Isa 9:10 “The bricks have fallen, but we will rebuild with chiseled stone; the sycamore fig trees have been cut down, but we will replace them with cedars.”

Dear Shmuel,

You are a star. You have addressed the problem better than I could have hoped, thinking in the same analytical way I like. And the advice of Dr. Ori Fragman-Sapir is an added bonus, naturally.

Thank you so much. As you may have spotted in your searching, there is very little objective addressing of the problem out there – all the writers seem to have fudged it somewhat. But you have clarified a lot. I shall read sycaminos as fig-related, just as sycomorus is, and maybe even the same tree – though I see in Strong’s Concordance that the classical writers knew both words – Luke wasn’t just making the word up, clearly!

The tree in the park is perfect for imagining such a tree being picked up and relocated in the sea. One of the gorgeous hyperbole Jesus seemed to love perhaps?  The other interpretation is that he chose this tree as an illustration not because of its size but because of the bitterness of the fruit, which I wasn’t so convinced by, hence why nailing it down botanically is crucial.

Dear Revd Williams,

You are right, in Luke 19:4 it’s συκομορέαν (sukomoraya) which is translated as sycamore-fig (that’s the photo I emailed you).

But in Luke 17:6 the Greek is συκαμίνῳ (sukamino) which Strong defines as “sycamine tree, having the form and foliage of the mulberry, but fruit resembling the fig”. I checked Avi Shmida’s guide book of Trees of Israel and he mentions a tree, Ficus pseudo-sycomorus which has the leaves of a mulberry and fig-like fruit – this seems to be a better candidate for sycamine. I did find two images at http://www.wildflowers.co.il/english/plant.asp?ID=2354. I will keep my eyes out for a pseudo-sycomorus which according to Shmida grows near Eilat.

Whatever the tree, to taste whether the fruit is bitter you will have to make the trip to Israel. Since you are interested in trees and plants of the Bible I mention the five fruit trees that are listed in the Bible as native to the land of Israel: grape and pomegranate – these ripen by late summer and early fall, there is freshly squeezed pomegranate juice available in the markets and various pomegranate wines; figs – are growing wild in the hills of Jerusalem and you can pick them right off the tree; olive – there are some venerable, old trees I can show you in the Garden of Gethsemane and majestic date palms in the Jordan valley. You can also taste the fruit of the carob tree (St. John’s bread), the almond and pistachio (see Genesis 43:11, where Jacob tells his sons to take of the best products of the land  to Egypt) and the Jujube tree perhaps from which the crown of thorns was fashioned (ziziphus spinachristi). And that concludes my brief treatise of trees in the Bible but you have to come and see for yourself.