the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
Click here to join the effort!
Bible Dictionaries
Hemlock
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
or רוש and ראש , Deuteronomy 29:18; Deuteronomy 32:32; Psalms 69:21; Jeremiah 8:14; Jeremiah 9:15; Jeremiah 23:15; Lamentations 3:5; Lamentations 3:19; Hosea 10:4; Amos 6:12 . In the two latter places our translators have rendered the word hemlock, in the others gall. Hiller supposes it the centaureum, described by Pliny; but Celsius shows it to be the hemlock. It is evident, from Deuteronomy 29:18 , that some herb or plant is meant of a malignant or nauseous kind, being there joined with wormwood, and in the margin of our Bibles explained to be "a poisonful herb." In like manner see Jeremiah 8:14; Jeremiah 9:15; and Jeremiah 23:15 . In Hosea 10:4 , the comparison is to a bitter herb, which, growing among grain, overpowers the useful vegetable, and substitutes a pernicious weed. "If," says the author of "Scripture Illustrated," "the comparison be to a plant growing in the furrows of the field, strictly speaking, then we are much restricted in our plants, likely to answer this character; but if we may take the ditches around, or the moist or sunken places within the field also, which I partly suspect, then we may include other plants; and I do not see why hemlock may not be intended. Scheuchzer inclines to this rather than wormwood or agrostes, as the LXX have rendered it. The prophet appears to mean a vegetable which should appear wholesome, and resemble those known to be salutary, as judgment, when just, properly is; but experience would demonstrate its malignity, as unjust judgment is when enforced. Hemlock is poisonous, and water-hemlock especially; yet either of these may be mistaken, and some of their parts, the root particularly, may deceive but too fatally."
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Watson, Richard. Entry for 'Hemlock'. Richard Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/wtd/h/hemlock.html. 1831-2.
