An olive (the tree or the fruit)
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” Its fifteen New Testament occurrences fall into several clear groups. Gospel narratives use the Mount of Olives as a real location near Jerusalem where Jesus approaches the city, teaches His disciples, and goes before His arrest.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἐλαία (G1636) · Open the biblical lexicon
” Its fifteen New Testament occurrences fall into several clear groups. Gospel narratives use the Mount of Olives as a real location near Jerusalem where Jesus approaches the city, teaches His disciples, and goes before His arrest.
The BSB source-word alignment has 15 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include of Olives (9), Olives (3), olive (1), olive tree (1), olive trees (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 21:1. Its strongest book concentrations include Luke (4), Mark (3), Matthew (3), Romans (2).
G1636 names an olive tree or olive fruit and also appears in the fixed place-name expression “Mount of Olives. ” Its fifteen New Testament occurrences fall into several clear groups. Gospel narratives use the Mount of Olives as a real location near Jerusalem where Jesus approaches the city, teaches His disciples, and goes before His arrest. Romans 11:17-24 develops cultivated and wild olive-tree imagery to address Gentile inclusion, Jewish branches, covenant nourishment, humility, and hope for grafting again.
James 3:12 asks whether a fig tree can produce olives, using the created consistency of fruit to challenge contradictory speech. Revelation 11:4 identifies two witnesses as olive trees and lampstands standing before the Lord of the earth within an apocalyptic vision. The noun does not make every olive occurrence a symbol of Israel, anointing, peace, or the Spirit.
The construction and genre determine whether the reference is geographical, botanical, metaphorical, or visionary. G1636 is especially important pastorally because Romans 11 forbids Gentile boasting. Those grafted among the branches share nourishment from a root they did not create, and Paul holds warning and hope together rather than licensing contempt toward Jewish people.
G1636 keeps the olive concrete as fruit, tree, and Jerusalem landmark while also carrying major imagery in Romans and Revelation. Its canonical teaching joins created fruitfulness, Jesus’ final-week geography, covenant nourishment, humility, witness, and hope.
Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed Him.
Jesus goes as usual to the Mount of Olives and the disciples follow, placing the coming prayer, arrest, and testing in a familiar real location rather than an invented symbolic landscape.
Now if some branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others to share in the nourishment of the olive root,
Paul pictures a wild olive shoot grafted among other branches to share the root’s nourishment, granting Gentiles real participation while denying any ground for boasting over Jewish branches.
My brothers, can a fig tree grow olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
James appeals to an olive tree’s consistent fruit within his rebuke of divided speech, making created kind and source an analogy for integrity rather than a botany lesson alone.
These witnesses are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.
The vision names the two witnesses as olive trees and lampstands before the Lord, drawing symbolic identity from the apocalyptic scene and its scriptural background rather than from the noun in isolation.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Refers to both the cultivated olive tree and its fruit; symbolizes peace and covenant blessing in Scripture.
Refers to both the cultivated olive tree and its fruit; symbolizes peace and covenant blessing in Scripture.
(Attic, ἐλάα), -ας, ἡ [in LXX for זַיִת ;]
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
15 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
an olive tree
Read versean olive tree
Read versean olive tree
Read versean olive tree
Read versean olive tree
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Read versean olive tree
Read versean olive tree
Read versean olive tree
Read versean olive tree
Read versean olive tree
Read versean olive tree
Read versean olive tree
Read versean olive tree
Read versean olive tree
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 5 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 14 lexical occurrence verses.
ἐλαία is from an obsolete root - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G1636 demonstrates how one concrete plant can remain itself while serving several literary purposes. In the Gospels, the Mount of Olives locates Jesus’ approach to Jerusalem, private teaching, prayer, and arrest within the city’s actual geography. James turns to ordinary created consistency: an olive tree does not produce figs, so speech that blesses God and curses people exposes a disordered source.
Romans 11 offers the most sustained image. Gentiles are not portrayed as planting a superior tree; a wild shoot is grafted among existing branches and shares nourishment from the root. Paul warns against arrogance, speaks of severity and kindness, preserves the possibility of grafting natural branches again, and directs the whole discussion toward divine mercy.
That argument must not be turned into Christian contempt for Jewish people. Revelation’s two olive trees belong to a visionary witness scene and draw on prophetic imagery, requiring genre-sensitive interpretation. Across these texts, olive language calls for rooted participation, congruent fruit, humble dependence, and faithful witness. The tree does not prove every doctrine attached to oil, peace, Israel, or the Spirit.
Instead, each passage gives the olive its task. Churches honor G1636 when they teach Jesus’ geography truthfully, reject supersessionist boasting, seek speech consistent with worship, and read apocalyptic symbols without sensational certainty.
Rom.11.17
G1636 can refer to the olive tree, its fruit, or form part of the genitive place-name Mount of Olives. Number, case, governing noun, and genre distinguish a botanical referent from geography, metaphor, or apocalyptic symbolism.
Olive trees and oil appear across Israel’s land, worship, kingship, provision, judgment, and prophetic visions. Romans draws covenant imagery through a cultivated tree, while Revelation echoes prophetic olive-and-lampstand patterns; neither author licenses a single symbolic equation for every olive text.