Cypress

UPDV uses "cypress" sparingly. Where it appears, the tree marks luxury timber, weapon-shafts, or — figuratively — the stature of personified Wisdom. Several verses traditionally associated with cypress in older versions render different species in UPDV (Isa 44:14 has cedar, holm-tree, oak, and fir-tree; So 1:14 and 4:13 have henna), so those passages drop out of this umbrella.

Cypress as luxury timber

Tyre's shipbuilders source cypress for fittings worthy of a merchant capital: "Of the oaks of Bashan they have made your oars; they have made your benches of ivory inlaid in cypress-wood, from the isles of Kittim" (Ezek 27:6). The wood enters the picture beside Bashan's oaks and Mediterranean ivory — a register of imported splendor.

Cypress spears

Nahum's vision of Nineveh's reckoning lists the weapons of the attacking host: "The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet: the chariots are blazing in the day of his preparation, and the cypress [spears] are brandished" (Nah 2:3). The straight-grained shafts are the haft-wood of the assault.

Cypress as figure for Wisdom

Wisdom describes her own growth in a botanical catalogue: "I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus, and like a cypress on the mountains of Hermon" (Sir 24:13). Cypress here belongs to the same tier as the Lebanon cedars — a tall, fragrant marker of stature on the high ridges.