Simonis, Johann. Onomasticum Veteris Testamenti sive Tractatus Philologicus [Lexicon of the Old Testament with Philological Treatise]

(ISRAEL, LAND OF)

Impensis Orphanotrophei

Halle

1741

Title in red and black. Latin interspersed with Hebrew, Arabic, Ethiopic and Greek. Engraved frontispiece map of the Land of Israel with place-names and divisions by tribe in Hebrew, covered by a grape vine, all within ornate frame

Laor 730; E. and G. Wajntraub, Hebrew Maps of the Holy Land (1992), p. 67

THE CELEBRATED “GRAPE VINE MAP” OF THE HOLY LAND. This is one of just a very few pre-19th century Holy Land maps captioned in Hebrew. Its epithet derives from the fact that the Land is covered by a grape-vine in depiction of Psalms 80:9-12, “Thou didst pluck up a vine out of Egypt; Thou didst drive out the nations, and didst plant it. Thou didst clear a place before it, and it took deep root, and filled the land. The mountains were covered with the shadow of it, and the mighty cedars with the boughs thereof. She sent out her branches unto the sea, and her shoots unto the River.” The grape-vine is thus an allusion to the People of Israel, their exodus from Egypt, and their conquest of the Land. E. and G. Wajntraub note that "the vine is a symbol of fertility according to the Prophet Jeremiah 31:5…Although it is comparatively small in size and compact in execution, much effort was made by its unknown engraver to include all the important places mentioned in the Old Testament"