GARDEN (גַּן, H1703, גַּנָּה, H1708, a royal garden; κῆπος, G3057, an orchard or plantation). The three most important events in the Bible took place in a garden: (1) Sin entered in (Gen 3); (2) The Lord Jesus accepted the fact that He must go to the cross (Matt 26:36-46); (3) He was put into a sepulcher and rose again (John 19:41).

God planted the first garden (Gen 2:8). Complete irrigation was provided (2:10), and God Himself loved walking in the garden in the cool of the day (3:8).

Kings liked gardens. Ahab, for instance, wanted to make a scented garden of herbs near his palace, and his wife had Naboth murdered so that he could do it. It was so important to him. Ahaziah fled down the garden path and through the orangery or head gardener’s house and so escaped (2 Kings 9:27), but Jehu followed him and killed him. Years later, at the siege of Nebuchadnezzar, many of the Heb. soldiers fled the same way. Manasseh had a garden in Jerusalem and was buried there (2 Kings 21:18).

Solomon waxed lyrical about gardens in the Song of Solomon (4:15)—“a garden fountain”; (6:2) “to pasture...in the gardens and to gather lilies”; (4:16) “Let my beloved come to his garden.” In Ecclesiastes 2:5, it says: “I made myself gardens.”

A garden is used to express joy, peace and satisfaction (Jer 31:12)—“their life shall be like a watered garden,” while a fruitless life is described as “a garden without water” (Isa 1:30).

Foreign potentates delighted in watered gardens. Esther saw the beautiful courtyard gardens of King Ahasuerus (Esth 1:5). The king found that a walk in his gardens calmed him when he was angry (Esth 7:7).

The garden of nuts (Song of Solomon 6:11) was prob. a grove of walnut trees. Moffatt therefore calls it a walnut bower—and it is a Pers. bower at that, as this was the species grown in Pal. See [http://biblegateway/wiki/Eden (Garden of) EDEN, GARDEN OF].