Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:
(yard). In Hebrew sense, enclosures for fruits, well watered (Gen. 2:10; 13:10; 21:33; Num. 24:6; Job 8:16); hedged (Isa. 5:5); walled (Prov. 24:31); protected (Isa. 1:8; Job 27:18; Mark 12:1).
Concise Bible Dictionary:
In the East the gardens were portions of ground under culture, and often enclosed by walls, in which fruit and herbs were grown. Water was always necessary: in the garden of Eden there was a river by which it was watered; and hence a fruitful place was described as well watered, “as the garden of the Lord” (Gen. 13:10). It is also used figuratively of great blessing: when Israel is restored, “their soul shall be as a watered garden” (Jer. 31:12); whereas under God’s judgments they were like a garden that had no water (Isa. 1:30).
The garden was also looked upon as a place of delights, and is often used figuratively in this sense (Song of Sol. 4:12-16; Song of Sol. 5:1; Song of Sol. 6:2,11; Song of Sol. 8:13). Gardens were also secluded places of secret sin (Isa. 65:3; Isa. 66:17).
The two most noted gardens in scripture were the gardens of EDEN and of GETHSEMANE. Once only we read of a GARDENER (John 20:15), though, since the curse upon the ground, there must always have been some who labored in gardens (compare Gen. 3:19; Song of Sol. 1:6); and in Eden, before the curse, Adam was placed in the garden “to dress it and to keep it” (Gen. 2:15).
“481. Lodge in a Garden” From Manners and Customs of the Bible:
Isaiah 1:8. The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.
As the fields were not always provided with fences it became necessary to have persons to watch them, especially while the fruit was ripening, in order to keep of all depredators, whether man, beast, or bird. These “keepers of a field” are referred to in Jeremiah 4:17, and they are still to be seen in the East. During the ripening season they watch day and night and through all sorts of weather, and hence need some protection from excessive heat, dew, or storm. This protection is found in temporary huts, which are made of closely twined branches and leaves, or of pieces or matting thrown over a rude framework of poles. There is an allusion to such a frail structure in Job 27:18 and also in Isaiah 24:20. When the crop is gathered and the field forsaken the deserted lodge soon leans and falls, and the whole scene is one of utter loneliness. It was such a picture of desolation to which the prophet compares “the daughter of Zion.”
“816. Place for Gardens” From Manners and Customs of the Bible:
John 18:1. He went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden.
Gardens were made outside of the cities. The rabbins assign as a reason for this the foul smells which arose from the weeds and from the manure which was necessary for fertilizing. “Upon this account there were no gardens in the city, (some few gardens of roses excepted, which had been so from the days of the prophets,) but all were without the walls, especially at the foot of Olivet” (Lightfoot, Horae Hebraicae, Matthew 27:60).
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