Bible Flowers: The Flowering Hyssop
Bible Flowers: The Flowering Hyssop.
“Spring flowers are unfolding in the fields. The season of glad songs has come, the cooing of the turtledoves is heard in the land. The fig tree is forming its first figs, and the blossoming vines give out their fragrance. Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come away with me.” (Song of Songs 2:12-13).
Every flower and blossom mentioned in Scripture has a story to tell. Bible flowers are planted in a context, and could be anything from an object lesson or sermon illustration, to a metaphor or a symbol, or perhaps simply a prime example of some of God’s creative genius. No matter what, when we study the flowers of the Bible, we will undoubtedly come to understand the Scriptures that much better,, whether we’re referring to the Henna blooms (Song of Songs 1:14) or the almond tree blossoms (Numbers 17:8); the Rose of Sharon (Song of Songs 2:1) or the hyssop flowers ( ); the Lily of the Valley (Song of Songs 2:1) or the Pomegranate blooms (Ex 28:33); the Crocus Saffron (Is. 35:1-2) or the myriads of wildflowers (Matt. 6:28-29); the Myrtle blooms or Willow blossoms (Ps. 137:1-2).
Is it true that everything physical points to something spiritual? That creation inevitably guides us back to the Creator? That physical realities in nature reflect spiritual realities in supernature? That God’s handiwork leads us to the Handiworker?
Beauty and Fragrance. Flowers are prime examples of how something that appeals to our physical senses can refer us to our spiritual senses. Let’s consider two wondrous qualities of flowers that help us praise the Maker at a deeper level: Beauty and Fragrance. Is there any doubt that only a beautiful God could have created the beauty we discover in flowers? Or that the sweet-smelling aroma of flowers serve to deepen our understanding of the Christian’s role in the world as the aroma of Christ? Because flowers lead the way in appealing to our natural senses, they are able to help us mere mortals to sense God in the full meaning of the term.
Senses and Symbols. Scripture loves to use our physical senses as symbols because if there’s one thing about us we can truly understand, it’s our senses. We may not truly understand our thoughts and actions, but we can understand our tangible senses. So the Bible uses our senses as reference points for how we can experience God more deeply. Our senses represent ways of participating in the Faith, of growing and knowing. Scripture encourages believers to use our senses both literally and spiritually in experiencing God. We can, with God’s help, sense God figuratively, using our physical senses as ideas that trigger a deeper understanding of the Faith.
“Everything happened as the Holy Writings said it would happen. And Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar of wine vinegar was nearby, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus shouted, “It is finished!” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” (John 19:28-30).
The Flowering Hyssop Plant. The biblical hyssop shrub, in Hebrew “Ezov,” is an evergreen flowery bush that grows wild in the Mediterranean region. It is an aromatic herb in the mint family, and is edible, often used as a garnish for desserts and salads, as well as a healing balm for coughs, earaches and asthma. As an antioxidant plant, there are numerous health properties to the hyssop plant. The hyssop produces beautiful blooms of violet, white, blue and red.
Deliverance and Cleansing. John mentioned the flowering hyssop plant in particular because of its historic significance in the Hebrew Scriptures and its prophetic importance regarding the messiah. John was trying to make the point that hyssop had a bloody history of being used in deliverance and in purification. Both are spiritually connected to the momentous events happening on the Cross of Christ.
Passover. We were first introduced to the hyssop plant during the Passover event in Egypt. The Hebrew slaves were instructed by Yahweh to use the flowering hyssop as a paintbrush, splashing lamb’s blood across their doorposts. “Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, ‘Go and select lambs for yourselves, and kill the Passover lamb.. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in your basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood… For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when He sees the blood on your doorposts, Yahweh will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.” (Exodus 12:21-24).
Purification. Hyssop was later used in the Tabernacle’s rites of purification, especially with the lepers and the ceremony with the red heifer. “According to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22). There appeared to be no logical reason for the red heifer ritual as God explained it (Numbers 19). A perfect, unblemished red heifer, one who hasn’t been yoked, was to be taken outside the camp and slaughtered. This heifer has to be completely red, and it had to be a young female cow that had not borne a calf. After the butchering of the heifer, the attending priest was required to sprinkle some of the cow’s blood seven times directly in front of the Tabernacle. The dead heifer was then to be completely burned, including its hide, its flesh, everything. Into this fire the priest was to place some cedar wood, a branch of hyssop, and a scarlet woolen thread. Both the man who burned the heifer and the eye-witness priest were then required to clean their clothes, take a bath, and be considered unclean till the evening. The priest was then instructed to gather the ashes and make a thin paste as they mixed the ashes with clean “living” water from a nearby stream. This mixture is called the “water of purification” by the Lord. “It is for purifying from sin,” says Yahweh (Nu. 19:9). If someone is deemed unclean, then a branch of hyssop is dipped into the watered down paste and is applied to the person’s tent, his vessels, and his body. The mixture of ash and water will purify the unclean person in the sight of God.
Symbol in David’s Psalm. The remorseful and repentant David, soon after his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband, used hyssop as a symbol of purification in Psalm 51: “Purify me with hyssop until I am perfectly clean! … Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow… Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (vs. 7, 10).
Jesus, the True Messiah. Scripture was fulfilled throughout Christ’s agonizing experience on the Cross. Psalm 22, for example, is often called the ”Psalm of the Cross” because of the uncanny prophecies that were made that make no sense unless one considers Christ on the Cross. His physical suffering alone is accurately reported in this Psalm: “I’m poured out like water, completely exhausted; every joint of my body has slipped out of joint; my heart is like wax, my courage has vanished, melting away within me; my strength is dried up like the broken fragments of a sunbaked piece of clay pottery; I am thirsty to the point of my dry tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth; they have pierced my hands and my feet; I look so emaciated that I can count all my bones.“ Continuing from that, the specific prophecy of Psalm 69:21 is messianic and clearly fulfilled in Christ’s statement about His acute thirst on the Cross and the immediate limited remedy: “… and they gave me soured wine to drink.” Sour wine was a cheap liquid refreshment used by the Roman soldiers on duty who had no access to clean water, and so drank this fluid, diluted with water and no actual alcohol in it, and was considered the same as vinegar. In this scene, the soldiers had a jar of the vinegar nearby for their use, heard Jesus croak out his thirst, and offered to Jesus on the Cross a sponge placed on a flowering hyssop branch that was soaked with the vinegar. Jesus sipped from the sponge after they had raised it to His lips. Jesus was thus able to shout, “It is finished!” so everyone within listening distance could easily hear it.
Jesus, the Red Heifer. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice hinted at in the animal sacrifice. He fulfilled all the requirements of the Old Covenant system… an unblemished, pure, innocent victim offering blood for atonement. Jesus completed the sacrificial system, so only one sacrifice, His, was needed. His blood brought forgiveness of all sins, by all people, for all time. At a superficial glance, it looks like God is out for blood. But God “doesn’t want blood, He wants life.” Only Jesus Christ, the Son of God, can offer his blood for eternal life, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). In Jewish tradition, the discovery of an unblemished red heifer signals the coming of the Messiah. Truer words were never spoken. Jesus is the Red Heifer. The Messiah has come.
So the flowering hyssop has quite the story to tell as a key role in the Passover, the deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, the cleansing of lepers, the purification ritual with the red heifer, the purging of the guilty conscience, and the Cross of Christ that confirmed Him as the long-awaited Messiah. “Truly, by the watering of our Savior’s blood, made with the hyssop of the cross, we have been restored to a white incomparably better than that possessed by the snows of innocence.” (Father Francis De Sales, 1567-1622).
And now from a gospel choir in Rwanda that named themselves after the Hyssop: