thorn Summary and Overview

(1.) Heb. hedek (Prov. 15:19), rendered "brier" in Micah 7:4. Some thorny plant, of the Solanum family, suitable for hedges. This is probably the so-called "apple of Sodom," which grows very abundantly in the Jordan valley. "It is a shrubby plant, from 3 to 5 feet high, with very branching stems, thickly clad with spines, like those of the English brier, with leaves very large and woolly on the under side, and thorny on the midriff." (2.) Heb. kotz (Gen. 3:18; Hos. 10:8), rendered "akantha" by the LXX. In the New Testament this word "akantha" is also rendered "thorns" (Matt. 7:16; 13:7; Heb. 6:8). The word seems to denote any thorny or prickly plant (Jer. 12:13). It has been identified with the Ononis spinosa by some. (3.) Heb. na'atzutz (Isa. 7:19; 55:13). This word has been interpreted as denoting the Zizyphus spina Christi, or the jujube-tree. It is supposed by some that the crown of thorns placed in wanton cruelty by the Roman soldiers on our Saviour's brow before his crucifixion was plaited of branches of this tree. It overruns a great part of the Jordan valley. It is sometimes called the lotus-tree. "The thorns are long and sharp and recurved, and often create a festering wound." It often grows to a great size. (See CROWN OF THORNS T0000930.) (4.) Heb. atad (Ps. 58:9) is rendered in the LXX. and Vulgate by Rhamnus, or Lycium Europoeum, a thorny shrub, which is common all over Israel. From its resemblance to the box it is frequently called the box-thorn.

(See BRAMBLE, (See BRIER.) (1) The Hebrew atad, Greek ramnos (Judges 9:14-15; Psalm 58:9); the Lycium Europoeum or boxthorn, in southern Europe and northern Africa, common in hedges. (2) Chedek; Proverbs 15:19, "the way of the slothful is as an hedge of thorns," i.e. he sees difficulties where all is plain to the willing and resolute (Proverbs 20:4; Proverbs 22:13); Micah 7:4, "the best of them is as a brier (thorn) ... sharper than a thorn hedge," pricking all who come in contact with them, a vivid image of the bad; a single thorn is sometimes two inches long, as sharp as a pin, and. as hard as a bone (2 Samuel 23:6-7). Thorns were the curse on the ground (Genesis 3:18). Jesus as "King of the curse" wore a crown of thorns (Galatians 3:13). So the blessing shall come in the regenerated earth, "instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree" (Isaiah 55:13). Ezekiel 28:24, "there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all round about them"; none, first, to ensnare Israel into sin (as a brier catches one's garment), then as the thorn to be the instrument of punishing them. (3) Choach, "thistles" (Job 31:40); some fast growing prickly weed. (4) Dardar Genesis 3:18, "thistles"; Greek triboloi, Latin tribuli (Matthew 7:16); the Tribulus terrestris, or else Centsurea calcitrapa, "star thistle." (5) Shamir, the Arabic samur, a kind of sidra. The Paliurus aculeatus ("Christ's thorn") and Zizyphus spina Christi, growing 20 or 30 ft. high, the Arab nebk, abound in Israel; the nebk fringes the Jordan. The natsowts of Isaiah 7:19 was probably some zizyphus. Christ's crown of thorns was probably platted of its flexible, round, thorny branches, so as to resemble in mockery the green garlands with which generals and emperors used to be crowned. The balm of Gilead is said to have been procured from the Spins Christi, by incision in the bark; antitypically, our healing comes from His wound. As King of the curse He wore the crown of thorns, to which the ground was doomed by man's sin; and from the thorns He extracts the medicine to heal our incurable wound (Jeremiah 8:22). Six species of thistle (carduus) have been noticed between Rama and Jerusalem. The thorny ononis or "rest harrow" also abounds in Israel. Thorns were often used for fuel (Ecclesiastes 7:6), their "crackling" answers to the fool's loud merriment which hurries on his doom; dried cow dung was the common fuel; its slowness of burning contrasts with the quickness with which the thorns blaze to their end (Nahum 1:10). As thorns "folden together" so that they cannot be disentangled and thrown into the fire in a mass, so the Assyrians shall be. Isaiah 27:4; Isaiah 33:12; Hebrews 6:8; Psalm 118:12; Psalm 58:9, "before your pots can feel the thorns He shall take them away as with a whirlwind both living and in His wrath": proverbial; explain rather before your pots' contents can feel the heat of the thorns burning beneath, He will with a whirlwind take the wicked away, whether the flesh in the pot (i.e. the plans of the wicked against the godly) be raw (literally, living) or sodden (literally, glowing); or else "He will take them (the wicked) away, whether green (not yet reached by the fire) or burning." Travelers in the desert often have the just kindled fire and all their preparations swept away by a sudden wind. Science regards thorns as undeveloped branches (as in the hawthorn; but prickles as in the bramble and rose are only hardened hairs); a specimen of the arrest which the fall put on the development of what otherwise would have been good; powers for good turned to hurt through sin.