The dark green, shiny leaves of boxwood are valued in formal gardens.
THIS TREE AND ITS TIMBER REMAIN the most mysterious of all woods mentioned in the Bible. The word “almug” was used only in connection with Solomon’s construction of the temple, discussed in II Chronicles 2:8 and 9:10–11 and in I Kings 10:11–12. Bible versions differ on the translation of the Hebrew word almuggiym, rendering it as sandalwood, juniper, or some variation of algum. Through transposition of letters, the Hebrew word can be either algum or almug, generally considered to be alterations of the same word.
From the verse and its context, the almug tree could be native to Lebanon, since it is mentioned with the better-known Lebanese timbers, cedar and pine (more accurately, cypress, as Cupressus sempervirens is assumed to be the tree translated as “pine” in many verses). In I Kings 10:11, the ships of King Hiram (King of Tyre) brought gold and “great cargoes of almugwood and precious stones” (NIV). For this reason, some Bible students have thought that the almug tree was native to southern Arabia (Ophir). Greenfield and Mayrhofer (1967) note there is little textual basis for associating Ophir with almug wood. Furthermore, the fact that Hiram’s ships brought gold along with almug wood does not necessarily imply that almug wood originated in Arabia, only that it was transported by Hiram’s men, who brought other products as well.
One possibility for almug wood is boxwood, Buxus longifolia, because large boxwood was known from the Taurus Mountains in southeastern Turkey. Hepper (1993) considers the box tree of the Bible (perhaps also the tree mentioned in Isaiah 41:19 and 60:13) to be B. longifolia. While this species is unknown in Lebanon, it does occur in the mountains just north of Lebanon in Turkey. Boxwood was highly valued by Egyptians for furniture and musical instruments (Gale et al. 2000). The latter use is significant in I Kings 10:12, where harps and lyres are mentioned: “Of the almug timber the king made supports for the Temple of Yahweh and for the royal palace, and harps and lyres for the musicians; no more of this almug timber has since come or been seen to this day” (NJB). Could this wood from Lebanon be the wood used in King Solomon’s carriage (Song of Solomon 3:9)?
Boxwood grown as shrubs in the national boxwood collection at the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.
Boxwood is one of the best-known evergreen ornamental shrubs in north temperate regions and is a favorite subject for topiary. Leaves are small, shiny, and dark green. Flowers are unisexual, inconspicuous, and result in unusual fruits that open to expose black, shiny seeds.
So is boxwood a good candidate for this almug? Various scholars offer Juniperus (United Bible Societies 1980), Aquilaria (Löw 1967), Pterocarpus (Zohary 1982), sandalwood (Santalum album), or Pinus (Greenfield and Mayrhofer 1967) as almug. Linguistically the original word is Akkadian, and several ancient documents indicate the term as a valuable timber from the vicinity of Lebanon (Greenfield and Mayrhofer 1967).
To date, no one has offered Taxus baccata, yew, as almug wood despite the fact that it grows in southern Turkey in the same area as boxwood (Dinsmore 1932) and is known from ancient Egyptian carvings of the Eighteenth Dynasty (Gale et al. 2000). Yew wood is hard, attractive, and well suited for working with tools (Musselman 1999).
Another possibility is that the almug tree is now extinct. In the Bible, I Kings 10:12 notes that exceptionally large quantities of the wood were imported. Was this the end of the almug tree? Post (1901) offers the extirpation of the tree as one explanation for the mystery.