Embodiments for storing a JSON document tree in a single SQL database table by defining a schema to store JSON nodes in the table and converting each JSON document into a corresponding set of rows in the table using the schema to encode a hierarchical relationship of nodes and sub-nodes into a path that specifies a node path to a root node for each node. Embodiments further receiving a SQL query to retrieve a specific sub-document, responding to the query by returning all rows of the table belonging to the sub-document, and inflating the returned rows back into a JSON expression using the path to guide reconstruction of the original JSON document tree.