John 20:15 - "Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ "

On any given spring or summer weekend, we can drive through the streets of our cities, and through the country as well, and see people in practically every plot of ground mowing, weeding, planting, watering, all the things that are necessary to have a beautiful, well-cared for garden. Most of us do all these things ourselves, and, furthermore, we enjoy doing them. Oh, we might complain a bit when the wife says, "Well, it’s time to plant the garden again!" But, we really are rather proud of the things we grow. We’re not at all opposed to showing off our prize flowers or vegetables.

We conscientiously build up a compost heap and spread it over the beds in the fall. We study the seed catalogs in the winter, and plan the flower and vegetable beds for the spring planting. And, what’s more, we take it for granted that we’re going to have the water and good soil and everything else that’s necessary to make our plans into realities.

But if we lived in a hot, dry Oriental country such as the ancient Hebrews knew, if we had to collect water in cisterns and reservoirs and then carry it to our plots, if we had to contend with rocky, hard soil without the benefit of modern equipment, I wonder if we would be so eager! But then, perhaps we would be, because there is plenty of evidence that the Hebrews were willing to work hard for the beauty and peace of the garden.

Now when we speak of gardeners, we have to remember that, as with most of the workers who hired themselves out for pay, this was a profession that was used only by the wealthy and the royal. The common man just couldn’t afford to hire anyone to do his work for him, and so he did it himself. But the large homes of the ruling and priestly classes were maintained by servants, and we may class the gardeners among them.

In the countryside, every home had a garden, if it was just a corner with a shade tree. In fact, this is one of the things that will be established in the days of the new Jerusalem - every man will have his own garden and his own shade tree under which he may sit in peace. Now this was fine for the country dweller, because he had the room. But in the cities, especially Jerusalem, the houses virtually climbed upon each other, and there just wasn’t room for gardens, except in the grounds of the large estates. So there is where we find the professional gardeners.

These men worked very hard, but it paid off. In the Old Testament alone there are more than 250 botonical terms - which is certainly evidence that this was more than just a job - it was a professional undertaking! Herod’s rose garden was famous through out the East for its magnificence! To accomplish the wonders of beauty, the gardeners used a fertilizer that wasn’t too different from some that we use today. They used dung, sand, animal blood, chaff, ashes, straw, leaves, scum of oil, and the left-overs of the field crops as compost. And it certainly was effective!

The Hebrews also used their gardens as burial plots. The field of Machpelah, Abraham’s burial ground, was a garden with trees in and around it. Manasseh and Amon were buried in Uzza’s garden, and, of course, Jesus was laid in the tomb prepared in the garden of Joseph of Aramathea.

The Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus often went to pray and meditate, was an olive grove; the name means "oil-press." In a spiritual sense, the use is often made of the garden - the believer is a garden watered by the Holy Spirit. A "well-watered garden" expresses abundant happiness and prosperity (Isaiah 58:11; Jeremiah 31:12), just as "a garden that hath no water" (Isaiah 1:30) expresses spiritual, national and individual barrenness and misery.

Large estates outside of the city walls also hired men to keep watch over their grounds, to prevent vandals from destroying the gardens and orchards, or to prevent infiltration of wild animals. In this instance, we can compare the caretaker or grounds keeper of today with his counterpart of yesterday. Both have specific guardian duties, and, perhaps, also are involved in the tilling of the soil as well.