Recently I had the privilege of hearing an great word from a great teacher and woman of God, AJ Jones,
about the use of acacia wood in the Bible.
Here are some interesting facts about acacia I gleaned from her teaching, and some other observations thrown in for good measure.
In the Old Covenant God commands Moses and the children of Israel to make basically everything for the Tabernancle and the Ark of the Covenant from acacia wood. Some items were overlayed with pure gold but everything except the golden lampstand had acacia wood at the core. So why acacia ?
Acacia (atzei shittim in Hebrew) was the only tree that grew in the desert in abundance
and was more bush-like than tree-like.
Acacia wood is dense, thorny,the grain of the wood is gnarly and changes direction.
It is resistant to decay, and happens to be unpalatable to insects making an ideal material for building items that would need to be durable and lasting, such as a Tabernacle that would be mobile, constantly being constructed,taken down and transported as the Israelites sojourned in the desert.
The construction process was tricky as the wood could shatter if the tools used by the craftsmen were not kept sharp.
My notes fom AJ’s teaching included these impressions:
“We can be like acacia wood-gnarly, our “grain” changing direction, thorny, not easy to work with.
But God loves to take gnarly things and cover them with gold.
The Lord God is not going to keep us in the desert if we seek after Him;
He is looking for a “YES GOD!”- obedience from us.
We are God’s dwelling places!- if the Lord was so concerned,
caring so much about His first dwelling place then we should not be surprised about how much He cares for us!”
Here are some of my thoughts and input from other readings:
“Israel settled in Shittim, and the people began to commit harlotry with the daughters of Moav . They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and prostrated themselves to their gods.”( Numbers 25:1-2)
The area known as Shiitim was so named because of the abundance of acacia (a plus), but it was a place of idol worship and lowness of morality, which dragged the children of Israel down.
The Midrash Rabba even says that the spring of Shittim watered Sodom.”
So why these specific trees from this specific seemingly unholy location used to create the ark and the tabernacle?The Jewish sages teach that God always “prepares the remedy before the illness.” The use of the Atzei Shittim-acacia-was in fact the cure for the moral failures of the people in Shittim.We, like the children of Israel, have a tendency to lose our way when we begin to feel unworthy and impure. The ark of the covenant and the tabernacle being fashioned from acacia, in spite of the their place of origin was a constant reminder of God’s habitation in their midst.
The ark being built of these same trees was meant to reinforce the understanding that moral failure was not a function of trees, or springs of water but a matter of choice.
God’s plan to use of the same wood would be a spiritual healing (tikkun) of the sins of the people at Shittim.
-Thanks to AJ Jones, and Shorashim