nettles Summary and Overview

NET'TLES , well-known wild plants, the leaves of which are armed with stings connected with a small bag of poison; and when the leaves are pressed by the hand, the stings penetrate the flesh and produce a swelling with a sharp, burning pain. Those who grope among the ruins of Palestine are often made to know that these weeds still abound there. The presence of nettles betokens a waste and neglected soil; hence the figure in Isa 34:13; Hos 9:6. The word rendered "nettles" in Job 30:7; Prov 24:31; Zeph 2:9 is supposed to refer to a different species of nettles, or to some shrub of similar properties, else it could not afford shelter. Tristram believes this plant to have been the formidable prickly acanthus.