Reference: THISTLES AND THORNS
American
Under these terms, together with brambles, briers, and nettles, are included numerous troublesome plants, many of them with thorns, well fitted to try the husbandman's patience, Ge 3:18. Plants of this class were a symbol of desolation, Pr 24:31, and were often used as fuel, Ps 58:9; Ec 7:6; Isa 33:12. They also served for hedges, Ho 2:6. A petty village on the plain of Jericho is now protected against Arab horsemen by a hedge of thorny Nubk branches. Dr. Eli Smith, visiting the plain where Gideon once threatened to tear the flesh of the princes of Succoth with thorns and briers, noticed such plants there of remarkable size, some of the thistles rising above his head on horseback, Jg 8:7. Few of the Hebrew terms can now be affixed with certainty to particular varieties among the many found in Syria. The plant of which the thorny crown of the Savior was made, with the design to mock rather than to torture him, is supposed to have been the Zizyphus Spina Christi, a common tree with dark and glossy leaves, having many small and sharp spines on its round and pliant branches, Mt 27:29; Joh 19:2-3. Paul's "thorn in the flesh," 2Co 12:7-10, may have been some bodily infirmity, unfavorable to the success of his public ministrations. Compare Ga 4:13-14; 2Co 10:10.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
and thorn and bramble it doth bring forth to thee, and thou hast eaten the herb of the field;
And Gideon saith, 'Therefore -- in Jehovah's giving Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand -- I have threshed your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness, and with the threshing instruments.'
Before your pots discern the bramble, As well the raw as the heated He whirleth away.
And lo, it hath gone up -- all of it -- thorns! Covered its face have nettles, And its stone wall hath been broken down.
For as the noise of thorns under the pot, So is the laughter of a fool, even this is vanity.
And peoples have been as burnings of lime, Thorns, as sweepings, with fire they burn.
Therefore, lo, I am hedging up thy way with thorns, And I have made for her a wall, And her paths she doth not find.
and having plaited him a crown out of thorns they put it on his head, and a reed in his right hand, and having kneeled before him, they were mocking him, saying, 'Hail, the king of the Jews.'
and the soldiers having plaited a crown of thorns, did place it on his head, and a purple garment they put around him, and said, 'Hail! the king of the Jews;' and they were giving him slaps.
and that by the exceeding greatness of the revelations I might not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of the Adversary, that he might buffet me, that I might not be exalted overmuch. Concerning this thing thrice the Lord did I call upon, that it might depart from me, read more. and He said to me, 'Sufficient for thee is My grace, for My power in infirmity is perfected;' most gladly, therefore, will I rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of the Christ may rest on me: wherefore I am well pleased in infirmities, in damages, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses -- for Christ; for whenever I am infirm, then I am powerful;
and ye have known that through infirmity of the flesh I did proclaim good news to you at the first, and my trial that is in my flesh ye did not despise nor reject, but as a messenger of God ye did receive me -- as Christ Jesus;