bramble Summary and Overview

(1.) Hebrew "atad", Judg. 9:14; rendered "thorn," Ps. 58:9. The LXX. and Vulgate render by rhamnus, a thorny shrub common in Israel, resembling the hawthorn. (2.) Hebrew "hoah", Isa. 34:13 (R.V. "thistles"); "thickets" in 1 Sam. 13:6; "thistles" in 2 Kings 14:9, 2 Chr. 25:18, Job 31:40; "thorns" in 2 Chr. 33:11, Cant. 2:2, Hos. 9:6. The word may be regarded as denoting the common thistle, of which there are many species which encumber the corn-fields of Israel. (See THORNS T0003642.)

[THORNS]

BRAM'BLE . See Thorns.

(atad). Not our English trailing blackberries; but the Paliurus rhamnus aculeatus, a lowly stunted tree with drooping jagged branches, from which project sharp stiff thorns, affording no shade, but only scratching those who touched it; fit emblem of the self important, petty, but mischievous speaker (answering to Abimelech) in Jotham's parable (Judges 9:8-20), the oldest fable extant. The "bramble bush" (Luke 6:44) is probably the same as Christ's thorn (Zizyphus spina Christi) supposed to be the kind of which Christ's crown of thorns was platted; a shrub about six feet high, producing an acid fruit as large as the sloe; the prickles grow in pairs, the one straight, the other curved back. The nebk of the Arabs, common everywhere, easily procurable, and pliable for platting, the leaves a deep green like the ivy; so suited to be a mock crown in imitation of the garlands or crowns with which emperors and generals used to be crowned.