Trees and Green Grass

Jotham's parable first makes trees speak as men (Judg 9:8-15). The righteous man is "like a tree planted by the rivers of water" (Ps 1:3), Assyria is a cedar of Lebanon (Ezek 31:3), Nebuchadnezzar is the great tree hewn down (Dan 4:10-22), and "all flesh is grass" (Isa 40:6). The book follows that use: trees are leaders, peoples and kingdoms, and green grass the ordinary people, so when they burn no group is untouched. A future literal wildfire reading of the first trumpet fails, since the locusts are later told not to hurt "the grass... neither any tree; but only those men" (Rev 9:4).