“Forests” and “Trees” Are Cities and People

Just as “mountains” and “hills” may mean “nations” or “kingdoms” in the Book of Isaiah, so “forests” and “trees” may mean “cities” and “people.” A literal and metaphorical meaning may apply. Isaiah thus reveals more than meets the eye. He establishes such dual meanings by using synonymous parallel statements, as in Isaiah 32:19: “By a hail shall forests be felled, cities utterly leveled.” Or by simile, as in Isaiah 7:2: “The king’s mind and the minds of his people were shaken, as trees in a forest are shaken by a gale.” “Rivers,” too, may refer to rivers of people, as in Isaiah 18:2: “A people continually infringing, whose rivers have annexed their lands.”

Note how the king of Assyria recounts his world conquest: “Because of my vast chariotry I have conquered the highest mountains, the farthest reaches of Lebanon. I have felled its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses. I have reached its loftiest summit, its finest forest. I have dug wells and drunk of foreign waters. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all Egypt’s rivers!” (Isaiah 37:24–25). When the tyrant passes away, “the pine trees rejoice over you, as do the cedars of Lebanon: ‘Since you have been laid low, no hewer has risen against us!’” (Isaiah 14:8). Those who rebuild are “called oaks of righteousness, planted by Jehovah for his glory” (Isaiah 61:3–4).

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