The Parable of the Trees of the Forest

This audio, less than 11 minutes in length, is an excerpt from a Christogenea Euro Forum from February, 2012. It offers an explanation of the Parable of the Trees of the Forest found in Judges chapter9. The parable explains precisely why political leaders in the governments of men are and always have been the scum of the earth. Yet men have no one but themselves to blame.

Edit June 12th, 2024: Our explanation of this parable was first redacted and put into writing for the article and podcast, Bible? Or Bureaucracy? and it was published in the Saxon Messenger as the editorial for the first isue of 2015. Now we have made a version of this explanation from a transcript, also with minor editing, because the original in the recording here was extemporaneous.

The Parable of the Trees of the Forest found in Judges chapter 9.

There's probably a different answer concerning this parable for every commentary you look into. I don't know, I have looked in a few that I thought were off base, far off base, and I didn't bother with any more. This is Judges 9, verses 8 through 15:

8 The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. 9 But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? 10 And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us. 11 But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees? 12 Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us. 13 And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? 14 Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us. 15 And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you [because, of course, the bramble didn’t believe it], then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon. [Which were, of course, the most noble of all the trees and also the biggest.]

The allegory of the parable of the trees in the forest is something we should always bear in mind. It's to show that all of the good and productive men of the land have no desire to rule over their fellows. The lesson here is that when men seek earthly kings to rule over them, they shall naturally end up with the lowest and most useless sorts as their rulers. Once they do, they must subject themselves to the scum of the earth or be devoured by them, and the lowest of men gain the advantage over the most noble.

When this country was founded, when the United States was founded, I'm sorry, for our European friends here, which is actually most of the room today….

When the United States was founded, the founding fathers understood the problems with the noble classes in Europe. And they set up a government that they envisioned would be staffed by men who left their farms at their own expense, by men who left their professions home at their own expense to go to Washington for two years, or for six years, and serve the people at their own expense, as a public service for very little recompense.

It wasn't long before the brambles took over. The olive tree knew that his job was to produce olives for the benefit of men. So he didn't want to rule over the other trees. And the fig tree knew that his job was to produce figs that men needed for food. So he didn't want to rule over the other trees. They understood that their roles were naturally to fulfill those things that they were fit to do, and to be productive trees. The same thing with the vine. It didn't want to leave its production of grapes for wine to rule over the other trees.

Well, it's the same thing with the doctor and the carpenter and the home builder and the plumber and all the men who are actually enjoying the function that they have in society that they chose that naturally suits their abilities and their interests and their likes. And that's how we should choose a career anyway. And the bramble is good for nothing, and because the bramble is good for nothing it naturally becomes a parasite. It's good for nothing, it's never produced anything, and it naturally fills that void that none of the other trees wanted to fill.

And when you look at our professional political class and even the professional that the -- I shouldn't call them professional -- the nobility of Europe for a great amount of time… I mean, at one time… nobles were engaged in useful endeavors. It doesn't really seem to be like that any more from what we see of the public, and there have been many nobles who just went about with their social life and their games and spending their their subjects money.

But now the bramble, if you look at our political class today in these modern democracies, the brambles have risen to power everywhere. Whether it be Europe, whether it be Germany or London or Ireland or the United States, the entire political class is full of brambles. It's full of people who have never, ever been able to produce anything in society on their own. These people have never been productive people who have actually manufactured anything or created anything or created opportunity for others to create anything. They are just political parasites. Today we have bramble in in control of our lives everywhere and that is what we were told would happen all the way back in Judges chapter 9.

Look at Obama, look at Joe Biden or look at the Bush family. These men have never themselves actually worked for a living at a craft and created something with their hands. They've spent their entire lives pursuing the rule over other men. They are brambles, and when men chose an earthly king the natural result of that is that the brambles would rule over us. And once men made that decision, men were forced to subject themselves to the brambles. Otherwise, the brambles, the lowest scum of the earth, the lowest trees of the forest, could indeed devour the cedars of Lebanon.

In other words, if you don't… once our forefathers chose to subject themselves to men rather than God, they chose that path for all of us. And no matter how noble we as individuals are, or big or strong or intelligent or productive, we're subject to the brambles or we're subject to be devoured. That's the lesson of the parable of the trees or the forest.