the Week of Proper 27 / Ordinary 32
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Bible Dictionaries
Brier
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
or This word occurs several times in our translation of the Bible, but with various authorities from the original.
1. הברקנים , Judges 8:7; Judges 8:16 , is a particular kind of thorn.
2. הרק , Proverbs 15:19; Micah 7:4 .
It seems hardly possible to determine what kind of plant this is. Some kind of tangling prickly shrub is undoubtedly meant. In the former passage there is a beautiful opposition, which is lost in our rendering: "The narrow way of the slothful is like a perplexed path among briers; whereas the broad road" (elsewhere rendered causeway ) "of the righteous is a high bank;"
that is, free from obstructions, direct, conspicuous, and open. The common course of life of these two characters answers to this comparison. Their manner of going about business, or of transacting it, answers to this. An idle man always takes the most intricate, the most oblique, and eventually the most thorny, measures to accomplish his purpose; the honest and diligent man prefers the most open and direct. In Micah, the unjust judge, taking bribes, is a brier, holding every thing that comes within his reach, hooking all that he can catch.
3. סרבים , Ezekiel 2:6 . This word is translated by the Septuagint, παροιστρησουσιν , stung by the aestrus, or gadfly; and they use the like word in Hosea 4:16 , where, what in our version is "a backsliding heifer," they render "a heifer stung by the oestrus." These coincident renderings lead to the belief that both places may be understood of some venomous insect. The word סרר may lead us to sar-ran, by which the Arabs thus describe "a great bluish fly, having greenish eyes, its tail armed with a piercer, by which it pesters almost all horned cattle, settling on their heads, &c. Often it creeps up the noses of asses. It is a species of gadfly; but carrying its sting in its tail."
4. סלין , Ezekiel 28:24 , and סלונים , Ezekiel 2:6 , must be classed among thorns. The second word Parkhurst supposes to be a kind of thorn, overspreading a large surface of ground, as the dew brier. It is used in connection with קוצ , which, in Genesis 3:18 , is rendered thorns. The author of "Scripture Illustrated" queries, however, whether, as it is associated with "scorpions" in Ezekiel 2:6 , both this word and serebim may not mean some species of venomous insects.
5. סרפר , mentioned only in Isaiah 55:13 , probably means a prickly plant; but what particular kind it is impossible to determine.
6. שמיר , This word is used only by the Prophet Isaiah, and in the following places: Isaiah 5:6; Isaiah 7:23-25; Isaiah 9:17; Isaiah 10:17; Isaiah 27:4; and Isaiah 32:13 . It is probably a brier of a low kind, such as overruns uncultivated lands.
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Watson, Richard. Entry for 'Brier'. Richard Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/wtd/b/brier.html. 1831-2.
