And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that [is] in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.
Ver. 33. For he spake of trees.] This was a discourse, doubtless, of singular use; and of it we may say as one doth of Origen's "Oetapla," now lost, Huius operis iacturam deplorare possumus, compensure non possumus, the lack of this book we may bewail, but cannot make good. When preferment was offered to Thomas Aquinas, he was wont to sigh and say, I had rather have Chrysostom's comment upon Matthew.
That springeth out of the wall.] Herbs parietina, wall-wort, as Trajan the emperor was called, for his desire of vain glory.
He spake also of the beasts, &c.] A worthy work doubtless, and such as whereof it might better be said, than was of Pliny's Natural History, by Erasmus, that it hath as much variety as nature itself hath, and is not so much a treatise as a treasury, yea, a whole world full of things most worthy to be noted and noticed. Ulysses, Aldrovandus, Conradus, Gesner, Gulielmus Rondeletius, Julius Scaliger, and other writers, both ancient and modern, have written largely and learnedly on the same subject, but nothing comparable to this work of Solomon: which some say was burnt by the Chaldees, together with the temple. Eusebius thinketh it was abolished by Hezekiah, because the people idolised it, as they did the brazen serpent.