There was no etrog in the original Tabernacles

During the period of exile, Hebrew became primarily a liturgical language as subsequent generations born in exile switched to Aramaic. On the one hand, this was a great blessing, as dead languages don’t evolve as rapidly as living languages, so that Hebrew remained much more accessible and the text was preserved for future generations — especially for us. If Hebrew kept evolving, it would have been much harder for us to understand the Bible today. On the other hand, the decline in Hebrew competency led to some classic rabbinic misinterpretations, particularly as some Hebrew idioms were forgotten1, such as in the famous passage in Leviticus 23:40, describing the construction of booths for the feast of Tabernacles:

And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick[read: leafy] trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. [KJV]

The Masoretic Text reads:

וּלְקַחְתֶּם לָכֶם בַּיֹּום הָרִאשֹׁון פְּרִי עֵץ הָדָר כַּפֹּת תְּמָרִים וַעֲנַף עֵץ עָבֹת וְעַרְבֵי נָחַל וּשְׂמַחְתֶּם לִפְנֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם שִׁבְעַת יָמִים׃ (BHS)

Most English translations view this as boughs of “majestic” or “beautiful” trees, of which three are given as examples: palm fronds, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook. That is, it is a list of three items all falling into the category of “foliage of majestic trees”.

The reason for this is that in Biblical Hebrew there is no punctuation, and in a list the items must be separated by the conjunction vav, ו. If two nouns or noun phrases are placed next to each other without a conjunction between them, then either one further specifies the first — they are in apposition — or a to-be verb is inserted between them. But in the Hebrew there is no vav between “goodly trees” and “palm fronds” even though there is a vav between palm fronds and branches of leafy trees and another vav between leafy trees and willows of the brook. So this is a list of three items that further specifies “boughs of majestic trees”.

It would be as if I said: you shall take classic cars – a corvette and a mustang and a camaro. That is a list of three items that fall into the larger category of “classic cars”.

However the traditional rabbinical interpretation considers this a list of four items: fruit of majestic trees, palm fronds, leafy tree branches, and willows. Why do the rabbis do this? Because the text of the Hebrew literally says fruit [peri] of majestic trees

As none of the three items that follow has any fruit, it cannot be the case that the subsequent three items are special cases of “fruit of majestic trees”. However this means the entire clause is ungrammatical (if it is interpreted as a list of four items) as there is no vav separating the first two items. This left the rabbis in a quandary, because either their interpretation of “fruit” was wrong — and that’s a pretty common word — or there is a grammatical error in the verse. But the vav is a very small letter – it could have been accidentally dropped – or there might have been a divine reason for omitting it, so they went with the latter option. They decided that the “fruit of the majestic trees” would be the citron tree, and this must have been after or during the late exilic period, because already in the Mishnah (composed 30BC – 200 AD) and in Josephus2 (first century) the citron tree is listed as the “majestic” tree which is the first of four trees in Leviticus.

Unfortunately the Hebrew knowledge that was forgotten was that “fruit” was also an idiom for “branches” or “foliage”, and this is how most English translations – including the King James – render peri in this context. Therefore the rabbis should have gone with option 1 – a different meaning of “fruit” (peri) with a grammatically correct list of three items, all examples of the “fruit” of majestic trees.

This may seem like a harmless error, but it has significant repercussions:

  • The first is that a whole series of teachings evolved around the role of the etrog in the feast of tabernacles that was unbiblical.

  • Second, etrog is actually a Persian loanword added to Hebrew during the exile. It appears nowhere in the Bible3. Citrons were native to, and associated with, Babylon, not Canaan. There were no citron trees in Palestine until it was introduced to the region after 600 BC – most likely by the returning exiles4. The assumption that the majestic trees were citrons led many critics to assume that this passage in Leviticus was added much later – after the exile – casting doubt on a verse of scripture. Even today, many critical commentaries assume this verse is an interpolation.

  • Third, the verse as interpreted is hard to reconcile with the description of how tabernacles was celebrated in Nehemiah 8:15 which makes no mention of citron or any other fruit being used in the ceremony but refers only to branches of trees. But if the law requires only branches of “majestic” trees, of which the list containing the three items is an example, then we can reconcile Leviticus 23 with Nehemiah 8.

  • Finally, interpreting Leviticus 23 to be a list of four items instead of three prevents us from seeing references to the booths elsewhere in scripture5.
  1. As another example of a forgotten idiom, leading to a hilarious set of prohibitions on eating milk and meat as well as struggles with Genesis 18:8, is “Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk”. For details, see https://www.academia.edu/21465916/You_Shall_Not_Boil_a_Kid_in_its_Mothers_Milk_Exod_23_19b_Exod_34_26b_Deut_14_21b_A_Figure_of_Speech
  2. See Josephus’ Antiquities 13.372 and Mishnah Sukkah 3:5 A
  3. The only time citron is referenced in the Bible is Revelation 18.12 (“thyine wood” in KJV), when referring to the fall of Babylon, further solidifying the association of Citron with Mesopotamia. Citron never appears in the Hebrew Bible.
  4. Milgrom, Jacob. Leviticus 23–27: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Vol. 3B. Anchor Yale Bible. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008.
  5. For example, the lotus, reed, and willows of Job 41:21-22 can be seen as a reference to the tabernacle in which Behemot, the beast, dwells.