Many legends tell of the 'evil nature' and the omen of evil of the carob tree. We heard the following story from Abu Razi, 95, of Bu'aina Najidat, on the edge of the Beit Netufa Valley: "King Solomon would wake up every morning and see a new tree that had appeared in the Holy of Holies. King Solomon asked the tree: 'What are you doing here?' The first was the fig tree, which replied: 'I have come to bless you.' Thus every morning a different tree would appear, coming to bless you. One day the carob tree appeared. King Solomon asked it: 'What are you doing here?' The carob tree replied: 'I am the last of the trees, and I have come to destroy the Temple.' And after four hundred years, Nebuchadnezzar came and destroyed the entire country."
The origin of this story and similar ones, which are common in Arab folklore, is found in the Quran: "And it came to pass, when We decreed for him to die, no one revealed to them his death except the worm of the earth, which ate his staff; and when the demons saw him fall dead to the ground, they said: If only we had known this secret, we would not have remained in our punishment and disgrace." This legend originates in the Talmud: "At first Solomon reigned over the superiors, as it is said: And Solomon sat on the throne of God, and finally he reigned not but over his staff, as it is said: What advantage has a man in all his labor? And it is written: This was my portion in all my labor." While neither source states what the staff on which Solomon leaned was made of, Arab tradition attributes this to the carob tree based on the similarity between the name of the plant and the verb "harb" (also in Arabic), which means to destroy.
Al-Wahidi, an 11th-century commentator on the Quran, dealt with the story of King Solomon's death and recounts the following story: "King Solomon used to ask every young tree: 'What disease can you cure?' Then the tree would answer: 'So and so.' When the carob tree grew, it was asked: 'What are you for?' and it answered: 'I am destined to destroy your temple.' King Solomon asked: 'Will you really destroy it?' and the answer was 'Yes!!'. Solomon replied: 'What a wicked tree you are!' Shortly afterwards he died."
Tawfik Canaan brings a more complex story, tying all the knots together: "One day King Solomon saw a tree in the courtyard of the Temple that he did not recognize. He asked the tree its name, 'Carob,' was the answer. 'And for what use are you fit?' The king continued. 'To destroy your work,' the plant replied. The king asked God that when his day came, and it did not matter when it would happen, he would hide it from the demons until all mankind would recognize it. Then King Solomon prayed, uprooted the carob tree, and planted it in his garden, to prevent as much damage as possible that it might cause. He carefully watched its growth until it had become a sturdy sapling. Then he cut it down and made it into a walking stick. Many years earlier, Bilqis, Queen of Sheba, had come to ask the king difficult questions. One of them was how to thread a silk thread through a bead. Solomon asked for the help of all the animals, birds, reptiles, and worms, and only one little white worm accomplished the task. She did so by taking the end of the thread in her mouth, crawling out of one side of the bead, and coming out the other. King Solomon granted her request in return to dwell in any plant she wished to feed on. Unbeknownst to him, she had found a dwelling for herself under "The bark of the carob branch, from which the staff was made... When the king's day came, he sat as usual, leaning on his staff when the angel of death arrived and took his soul... Finally, the worm gnawed the inside of the staff, which suddenly broke, and then the king's body rolled onto the floor."
From: Amotz Dafni and Saleh Akel Khatib (2024) Roots, Roses and Kings Pardes Publishing.
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