כַּרְמֶל
kar.mel (H3759)
plantation
AI Word Study
# Karmel: Understanding a Biblical Term for Cultivated Land The Hebrew word *karmel* (H3759) denotes a "plantation"—specifically, cultivated agricultural land. With 17 occurrences in the Bible, the term appears with enough frequency to suggest it held practical significance in ancient Israelite society. The word refers to deliberately planted and managed fields, distinguishing such productive land from wilderness or uncultivated territory. This reflects the importance of agriculture in biblical communities and the value placed on developed, fruitful property. The term's presence across multiple biblical texts indicates that plantations or cultivated estates formed a recognizable category of land use in ancient Israel. The relatively modest number of occurrences—neither extremely rare nor ubiquitous—suggests the word was used in specific contexts where distinguishing cultivated farmland from other terrain mattered. Understanding *karmel* provides insight into how biblical writers conceptualized and discussed the landscape around them, particularly in passages dealing with property, prosperity, or agricultural productivity.
AI synthesis uses only provided lexicon data -- never training knowledge.
“ ‘If you offer a meal offering of first fruits to Yahweh, you shall offer for the meal offering of your first fruits fresh heads of grain parched with fire and crushed.
You must not eat bread, or roasted grain, or fresh grain, until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God. This is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
A man from Baal Shalishah came, and brought the man of God some bread of the first fruits: twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. He said, “Give to the people, that they may eat.”
By your messengers, you have defied the Lord, and have said, “With the multitude of my chariots, I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon, and I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees; and I will enter into his farthest lodging place, the forest of his fruitful field.
He built towers in the wilderness, and dug out many cisterns, for he had much livestock; in the lowland also, and in the plain. He had farmers and vineyard keepers in the mountains and in the fruitful fields, for he loved farming.
He will consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body. It will be as when a standard bearer faints.
Gladness is taken away, and joy out of the fruitful field; and in the vineyards there will be no singing, neither joyful noise. Nobody will tread out wine in the presses. I have made the shouting stop.
Isn’t it yet a very little while, and Lebanon will be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field will be regarded as a forest?
until the Spirit is poured on us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is considered a forest.
Then justice will dwell in the wilderness; and righteousness will remain in the fruitful field.
By your servants, you have defied the Lord, and have said, “With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon. I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees. I will enter into its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field.
I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruit and its goodness; but when you entered, you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.
I saw, and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of Yahweh, before his fierce anger.
Gladness and joy is taken away from the fruitful field and from the land of Moab. I have caused wine to cease from the wine presses. No one will tread with shouting. The shouting will be no shouting.
Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your heritage, who dwell by themselves in a forest, in the middle of fertile pasture land, let them feed; in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.