“The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon” (Psalm 92:12).

Believers are often likened to trees in Scripture: “He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper” (Psalm 1:3). “I am like a green olive tree in the house of God” (Psalm 52:8). “His branches shall spread, and His beauty shall be as the olive tree, and His smell as Lebanon” (Hosea 14:6).

The palm-tree figure is especially intriguing. In Scripture, the palm is always the date palm, stately and beautiful. It has extremely deep tap roots—called a root ball—and thus can flourish even in the desert, growing tall and living long. It is perhaps the most useful of all trees, not only producing dates, but also sugar, wine, honey, oil, resin, rope, thread, tannin, and dyestuff. Its seeds are fed to cattle and its leaves are used for roofs, fences, mats, and baskets. Its fruit is said to get sweeter as the tree grows older, and this is compared to the believer in a beautiful verse: “Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing” (Psalm 92:13,14).

It was palm branches that padded the path of the Lord Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem on the ass’s colt on that first Palm Sunday long ago (John 12:13; Matthew 21:8). This itself was a picture in miniature of the great multitude of the redeemed and resurrected saints who will greet the Lord Jesus at His throne, “clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands”; crying, “Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9,10).

May God enable each of us to flourish like the palm tree—beautiful in the Lord, useful in His service, bearing good fruit to His glory, even into old age! HMM