A tamarisk tree or grove, planted by Abraham at Beersheba as a place of worship and rest (Genesis 21:33). The word appears three times in the Old Testament and always in contexts of significance — Beersheba, Gibeah, and Jabesh-gilead.
Abraham's planting of a tamarisk at Beersheba was not merely horticultural — it was an act of covenantal worship. After digging the well and settling a treaty with Abimelech, he 'called there on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God' (El Olam). The tree marked a site of divine encounter, functioning much like an altar. The later tamarisk at Gibeah shaded Saul's command post (1 Samuel 22:6), and the bones of Saul were buried under a tamarisk at Jabesh-gilead (1 Samuel 31:13). Trees throughout Scripture mark thresholds between the human and the holy.