Thimnathah in Biblical History

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What is Thimnathah?
THIM'NATHAH
, now Tibneh, north-east of Lydda. Josh 19:43. See Timnah, 1. THISTLES and THORNS. Gen 3:18. Palestine abounds in all manner of such plants, as is indicated by the fact that about eighteen different Hebrew words for them are found in the O.T. These are translated by "bramble," "brier," the above terms, and a few others, without much method or consistency. The figurative use of these plants denotes desolation. Prov 24:31; Isa 5:6; Hos 2:6; Isa 9:6; Hos 10:8; the visitations of Providence, Num 33:55; Jud 2:3; 2 Cor 12:7; difficulties and hindrances, Prov 15:19; and troubles. Prov 22:5. The "crowning with thorns," Matt 27:29, was probably the wanton invention of the Roman soldiery, and made no part of the established punishment. Very possibly the Saviour's enemies used for this purpose the twigs of the Christ-thorn (Zizyphus spina-Christi), which are slender, Palestine Thorn (Zizyphus spina-Christi). yet armed with terrible spines, and are still found growing in the vicinity of Jerusalem. In the Holy Land various kinds of buckthorn, with other allied and equally formidable shrubs, are abundant, as is also the box-thorn (Lycium Europaeum). True thistles and thistle-like centaureas are common. In the Jordan valley a solanum (S. sanctum) grows from 3 to 5 feet high, clothed with spines. Tristram observed that the common bramble (Rubus fructicosus) was very abundant between the ancient Beth-shean and the fords of Succoth, and these were perhaps the thorns of Jud 8:7, Ex 17:16. The most formidable of all is that herbaceous plant the acanthus, well called by botanists spinosus. These are a few of the multitude of thistles and thorns that cover the land and often choke the very crops. Matt 13:7. Of the shrubby burnet Miss M. E. Rogers justly says: "No plant or bush is so common on the hills of Judaea, Galilee, and Carmel as this. It is used extensively for fuel, especially for the bakers' ovens, and the 'crackling of thorns under a pot,' Eccl 7:6, may often be heard in Palestine." This low burnet is commonly pulled up and laid upon the tops of the mud walls enclosing houses or gardens. Being held in place with clay, few animals or men will attempt to cross a wall thus guarded. Often the still more formidable Christ-thorn is used for the same purpose, illustrating Hos 2:6. A traveller in Judaea remarks: "As we rode through Riphah we perceived it to be a settlement of about fifty dwellings, all very mean in their appearance, and every one fenced in front with thorn-bushes, while a barrier of the same kind encircled the whole of the town. This was one of the most effectual defences which they could have raised against the incursions of horse-riding Arabs, the only enemies whom they have to dread, as neither will the horse approach to entangle himself in these thickets of brier, nor could the rider, even if he dismounted, get over them, or remove them to clear a passage without assistance from some one within. "There are a great many more thorny plants in Palestine than in America, and these plants love the wheat-fields. The farmers have a habit of going out before these thorns go to seed and gathering them with a sickle and forked stick, and burning them or threshing them out for the donkeys to eat. But some farmers are lazy and do not take this trouble, and sometimes even an industrious farmer will neglect a corner of his field, and it will presently be overrun with coarse thorns. But the stalks of these thorns rot away and disappear in the winter, and only their seeds remain concealed in the ground at the season of sowing. The earth looks like that of the rest of the field, and the farmer ploughs in his seed with a good heart in hopes of an abundant return. But the thorns spring up with the wheat, and, being much stronger, their roots soon twine about those of the wheat and absorb all the water from the ground in which they both grow together, and their branches overshadow the green blades, and so the plants either make no seeds, or so few and poor ones that the farmer does not care to pick out the stalks from the thorns, and he either burns them together or threshes out all as food for his donkey. Matt 13:18-23." -Post.

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Schaff, Philip, Dr. "Biblical Definition for 'thimnathah' in Schaffs Bible Dictionary".
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