In this verse some of the new branches have been taken away for reservation in other locations. Returning to historical situations, a removal of people from Jerusalem occurred during both the Assyrian and the Babylonian conquests. The Lehites are very clearly one of these branches (as will become plain shortly). In the general interpretation of the first care of the tree being the sending of the prophets, the young and tender branches would have been those that believed.
Using Lehi’s family as a possible model, a prophet comes among the people and calls them to repentance. The main body of Israel does not change its ways (the tops of the tree) and the believing body is called of God to leave and settle in a new place. This is the story of Lehi, and is also the story of the community who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. They also saw themselves as reformers of Israel, and removed from the main body to be able to preserve their beliefs (Damascus Document A 1:11-13, in: Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Wise Abegg, & Cook. Harper San Francisco. 1996, p.52). The conception of a prophet calling a people out of Israel to preserve the “true” belief is therefore no surprise to ancient Israel.
Symbolic: The second important image to appear here is the root. To what does that refer? In the Pauline allegory, there has been some diversity of opinion over the meaning of the root, with a perhaps more prevalent reading as the patriarchs, or specifically Abraham (see, for instance, Fitzmyer, Joseph A. S.J. Romans. The Anchor Bible. Doubleday, New York. 1992, p. 609-610). In Zenos’ allegory this definition may still hold, but there is yet a tighter connection with the “trunk” or the main body of Israel, as the root remains with the tree while young branches will preserve the “essence” of the root while physically separated from it. Perhaps more than the patriarchs, Zenos’ allegory uses the root as the Abrahamic covenant itself.
In this reading of the symbology, the original covenant between God and his people is what is being preserved. Clearly that initial covenant was “good,” and worthy of preservation. In this context, the grafting in of branches becomes an even more powerful image.
Grafting is the physical process of inserting a foreign botanical material into the main tree. The “wild” branches are very literally from a different tree. They were not part of the original root, yet their grafting brings them into contact with the nourishment of the root, and the same generative power that the root carries to the natural branches is carried to the grafted branches.
As a symbol for the covenant between God and his people, the grafting is the insertion of non-lineal people into the covenant of uniqueness with God. While not children of Abraham by birth, they become children of Abraham by adoption, and as adopted heirs receive fully of the benefits of the covenant. This reading reinforces the gentile Christian church as the beneficial grafting of the “wild” branches (and precisely parallels Paul) and precludes the Assyrian and Babylonian intermarriages as an explanation for the grafting, as they were not adopted into the covenant.