Rabbi Roodyn

יב) יַעֲלֹז שָׂדַי וְכָל אֲשֶׁר בּוֹ אָז יְרַנְּנוּ כָּל עֲצֵי יָעַר

The field and all that is therein will jubilate; then all the forest trees will sing praises.:

Rav Hirsch explains that all these scriptural accounts give particular mention to ‘trees of the forest’. The forest is the habitat of the animal world. But its trees, once they are felled enter into the service of man so that he may build his houses and put them to a variety of uses in his private and social life.

If man climbs up the mountains and fells the giants of the forest in order to raise up edifices in which to unfold a way of life that is truly human, then the trees will rejoice. For, while formerly they had fulfilled the function of sheltering animals that were innocent, to be sure, but devoid of intelligence, they now have been turned into dwelling places of which the G-d like nobility of G-d orientated moral endeavour unfolds.

But if the cedar and oak must come down from their high places only to be slaves to the ambitions of voluptuousness and violence, then the forest weeps and laments: ‘what right has man to lay violent hands upon the dumb but innocent realm of nature, seeing that he, who would be capable of reasoning, plans to make nature subservient to a life that runs counter to all reason and is tainted with guilt?’