Grenade and Pomegranate

A pomegranate is a fruit somewhat roundish in shape, but not round like an apple—though the poma part of its name means apple.  The pomegranate is roundish but flatter than an apple—something like a football, but that does not quite describe it either.  It’s more like---I’ve got it—like a grenade.  Aha!  That’s it.  In fact, the word grenade comes from the second half of the word pomegranate.  Pomegranates are sometimes called grenades, for short.  To the inventor of the grenade—and who would want to take credit for that?—the shape of this devastating little bomb must have suggested the pomegranate, and hence the name. 

But a huge irony lurks in the word grenade, for this instrument of death comes from a word that signifies life.  From the very earliest times and in many cultures, the pomegranate has been a symbol of life, of resurrection, fertility and plenty.  In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, the goddess of grain.  Her daughter, Persephone was stolen by Hades the Lord of the Underworld and when Zeus sent his messenger Hermes to Hades, demanding that he release her, Hades gave her a pomegranate seed to eat and this required her to return to the underworld every winter.  Her mother Demeter, because of her grief, stopped all things from growing during the winter.  Then in the spring, when Persephone was allowed to return to earth, things began to grow again and life was renewed.  Thus, in this Greek myth of grain goddesses, we see the pattern of all growth.  The grain, like Persephone, is put into the soil and then in the spring it comes to life again.  And the Greeks connected this to the pomegranate seed.

The ancient Persians had pomegranates carved upon their walking sticks and scepters; the walls of the city of Pompeii were ornamented with pomegranates carved to honor the goddess Isis the Egyptian goddess of motherhood, also responsible for the flooding of the Nile that watered the crops.

And perhaps most interesting to Christians and Jews, in Exodus 28: 33 &34, God gives directions for the making of the robe that the High Priest Aaron was to wear:  “And upon the hem of it thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and bells of gold between them round about: a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate upon the hem of the robe round about.”

Clearly this choice of placing the pomegranate on the robe of the high priest, the bringer of life, is intentional by almighty God and not accidental or random.

What are we to make of the fact that Jehovah God used as a symbol of life for Jews and Christians this pomegranate, the same element that was used by many pagan religions?  Well, we know that God used a pattern from nature--a seed that dies, is placed in the soil and then comes to life again to carry out the redemption of the world when Christ died, was placed in the ground and arose from the dead.  Jesus himself draws the analogy as he explains his coming death to his disciples.  So, what would be a better symbol of this death and rebirth than the pomegranate, a fruit abundantly filled with seeds.  And it is perfectly natural that pagan religions with a glimpse of the truth (for the divine light lighteneth everyman) would also see in the death and resurrection of seeds the primal religious act and build their pagan religions around this event.

And what of our modern culture which makes of this life symbol, a death symbol??