3. Gl~3, jmrdts', a word of foreign origin, like the Greek TraoactiaoQ and the Xxi\h\c jMrdasun, q. ({.park means an enclosed gai-den or plantation attached to a palace, intended either for ornament or for containing animals of the chase (Eecles. ii, 5 ; Cant. iv. 13 ; comp. Xenophon, Cyrop. i, 3, 12). It is found onl^- three times in the Bible, and is once translatedybcerf. In Neh. ii, 8, Asaph is called "the keeper of the king's forest" (Sept. Toii Trapactiaov'), where it appropriateh' express- es the care with which the forests of Palestine were preserved under the Persian rule, a regular warden being appointed, without whose sanction no tree could be felled. Elsewhere the word describes an orchard (Eecles. ii, 5; Cant, iv, 13). See Orchakd.
Although Palestine has never, in historical times, been a woodland countrj'-, yet there can be no doubt that it contained much more wood formerl}- than it has at present. Tracts of woodland are mentioned by travellers in Palestine, but rarely what we should call a forest. Tliere are still some remnants of ancient oak forests on tlie mountains of Bashan, Gilead, Her- mon, and Galilee. One solitary grove of cedars exists on Leiianon, but fir-trees are there abundant. The otiier forests of Palestine (2 Kings ii, 23 ; 1 Sam. xiv, 25; vii, 2, etc.) have almost disappeared. Yet here and there, in every district of the country, north and south, east and west, one meets with a solitary oak or terebinth of huge dimensions, as at Heliron, and the valley of Elah, and Shiloh, and Dan. These are the last trees of the forests, and serve to indicate what the forests of Palestine once were. Hence it is probable that the highlands were once covered with a primeval forest, of which the celebrated oaks and terebinths (e. g. those of Abraham, Tabor, etc.) scattered here and there wore the relies. The woods and fotests men- tioned in the Bible appear to have been situated where they are usually found in cultivated countries, in the
valleys and defiles that lead down from the high to the low lands, and in the adjacent plains. They were therefore of no great size, and correspond rather with the idea of the Latin saltus than with our farcst. The following are those that occur in Scripture. See Tree. (1.) The most extensive was ths foi-est {yaar, "wood") of J-^phraim, implying a region of Ephraim covered with forests where Mount Jearim {Ilill of For- ests) was situated (.Josh, xv, 10); or in allusion" to the name of the city Kirjath-jearim (1 Sam. vii, 1, 2). It clothed the slopes of the hills that bordered the plain of Jezreel, and the plain itself in the neighborhood of Bethshan (Josh, xvii, 15 sq.), extending, perhaps, at one time to Tabor, which is translated cpu^ioc by The- odotion (Hos. v, 1), and which is still well covered witli forest-trees (Stanley-, p. 350). It is, perhaps, the same with the wood of Ephratah (Psa. cxxxii, C). See Ephratah.
(2.) There was a trans-Jordanicyoresi {yaar, " wood") of Ephraim (2 Sam. xviii, 6 ; Sept. ?.pvn6c). It was here that the army of Absalom was defeated, and he himself slain. It laj"^ near, probably a little to the west of, the town of iMahanaim, where David had his head- quarters, and whore he received the first tidings of the fate of his son (xvii, 26; xviii, 24). AVh}' a forest cast of the Jordan should bear the nt.me Ephraim can- not now be determined ; but one thing is certain — in the noble oaks which still clothe the hills of Gilead north of the Jabbok we see the remnants of "the wood of Ephraim," and the representative of that "great oak" in one of whose branches Absalom was strangely imprisoned (xviii, 9 ; see Porter's Handbook for Syria and Palestine, p. 311, 314). Winer places it on the west side of the Jordan ; but a comparison of 2 Sam. xvii, 26; xviii, 3, 23, proves the reverse. The statement in xviii, 23, in particular, marks its position as on the highlands, at some little distance from the valley of the Jordan (comp. Joseph. Ant. vii, 10, 1, 2). See Ephraim, Wood of.
(3.) The forest (yaar, Sept. ttoXic, A.V. "forest") of Hareth, in the mountains of Judah, to which David withdrew to avoid the furj' of Saul (1 Sam. xxii, 5), was somewhere on the border of the Philistine plain, in the southern part of Judah. See H.vreth.
(4.) The wood (choresh, Sept. opoc, A.V. "wood") in the uilderness of Ziph, in which David concealed himself (1 Sam. xxiii, 15 sq,), lay south-east of He- bron. See Ziph.
(5.) The forest (yaar, Sept. ^pvpvc, A.V. "wood") of Bethel (2 Kings ii, 23, 24) was situated in the ravine which descends to the plain of Jericho. See Bethel. (G.) The forest (yaar, ^pvpoc, "wood") through which the Israelites passed in their pursuit of the Phi- listines (1 Sam. xiv, 25) was probably near Aijalon (compare v, 31), in one of the valleys leading down to the plain of Philistia. Sec Saul.
(7.) The u-oods (choresh, ^pvpoc, "forest"') in which Jotham placed his forts (2 Chron. xxvii, 4) must have been similarly situated. See Jotham.
(8.) The plain of Sharon was partly covered with wood (Strab. xvii, 758), whence the Sept. gives cpv- poi as an equivalent for that name in Isa. Ixv, 10. It has still a fair amount of wood (Stanley, p. 260). See Sharon.