Fruit

Edible produce of trees, usually sweet and pleasant-tasting. The climate of the Near East is particularly suitable for a wide range of fruit and several varieties are mentioned in Scripture.

Apples

Sweet, pleasant-tasting fruit

Song of Solomon 2:3 See also Proverbs 25:11; Song of Solomon 2:5, Song of Solomon 7:8

Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

Apple trees

Joel 1:12 See also Song of Solomon 2:3, Song of Solomon 8:5DEU Song of Solomon 32:10; Psalm 17:8; Proverbs 7:2; Zechariah 2:8

The grapevine is dried up, and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, palm, and apple— all the trees of the orchard— are withered. Surely the joy of mankind has dried up.

Dates

2 Samuel 6:19 parallel 1 Chronicles 16:3

Then he distributed to every man and woman among the multitude of Israel a loaf of bread, a date cake, and a raisin cake. And all the people departed, each to his own home.

Figs

Numbers 13:23 See also Numbers 20:5; 1 Samuel 25:18–20, 1 Samuel 30:11–12; 2 Samuel 16:1; 1 Chronicles 12:40; Mark 11:13

When they came to the Valley of Eshcol, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes, which they carried on a pole between two men. They also took some pomegranates and figs.

Grapes

Deuteronomy 32:3–14 See also Genesis 40:9–11; Numbers 13:23–24, Numbers 20:5

Melons

Numbers 11:5 See also Isaiah 1:8; Jeremiah 10:5

We remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.

Pomegranates

Pleasant-tasting fruit

Deuteronomy 8:7–8 See also Numbers 13:23, Numbers 20:5; Song of Solomon 6:11, Song of Solomon 7:12, Song of Solomon 8:2

For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills; a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey;

Pomegranate trees

1 Samuel 14:2 See also Joel 1:12; Haggai 2:19SNG Haggai 4:3, Song of Solomon 4:13, Song of Solomon 6:7

Meanwhile, Saul was staying under the pomegranate tree in Migron on the outskirts of Gibeah. And the troops who were with him numbered about six hundred men,

Representations of pomegranates in the tabernacle and temple

2 Kings 25:16–17 parallel Jeremiah 52:20–23 See also Exodus 28:31–35 parallel Exodus 39:22–26; 1 Kings 7:15–20, 1 Kings 7:40–42 parallel 2 Chronicles 4:11–13; 2 Chronicles 3:16

As for the two pillars, the Sea, and the movable stands that Solomon had made for the house of the LORD, the weight of the bronze from all these articles was beyond measure. Each pillar was eighteen cubits tall. The bronze capital atop one pillar was three cubits high, with a network of bronze pomegranates all around. The second pillar, with its network, was similar.

Fruit and the fall

Genesis 3:12 See also Genesis 3:1–7

And the man answered, “The woman whom You gave me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

General references to fruit

Amos 8:1–2 See also Genesis 1:11–12, Genesis 1:29; Leviticus 19:23–25; Ecclesiastes 2:5; Ezekiel 47:12; Micah 7:1; Revelation 22:1–2

This is what the Lord GOD showed me: I saw a basket of summer fruit. “Amos, what do you see?” He asked. “A basket of summer fruit,” I replied. So the LORD said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel; I will no longer spare them.”

Fruit as a symbol of spiritual growth

Matthew 3:10, Matthew 12:33