Topic
Nettles
5 passages cited, from 2 classic reference works.
These works date from 1896–1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Job 30:7ISBE · Nave FIGURATIVE
Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.
- Proverbs 24:31ISBE · Nave An obnoxious plant
And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.
- Isaiah 34:13ISBE · Nave An obnoxious plant
And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.
- Hosea 9:6ISBE · Nave FIGURATIVE
For, lo, they are gone because of destruction: Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them: the pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them: thorns shall be in their tabernacles.
- Zephaniah 2:9ISBE · Nave FIGURATIVE
Therefore as I live, saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, even the breeding of nettles, and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation: the residue of my people shall spoil them, and…
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 7 references
net'-'lz: (1) charul, (Job 30:7; Pr 24:31; Ze 2:9 margin, in all, "wild vetches"); the translation "nettles" is due to the supposed derivations of charul from an (obsolete) charal, meaning "to be sharp" or "stinging," but a translation "thorns" (as in Vulgate) would in that case do as well. Septuagint has phrugana agria, "wild brushwood," in Job, and certainly the association with the "saltwort" and the retm, "broom," in the passage would best be met by the supposition that it means the low thorny bushes plentiful in association with these plants. "Vetch" is suggested by the Aramaic, but is very uncertain. (2) qimmosh (Isa 34:13; Ho 9:6), and plural qimmeshonim (Pr 24:31), translated (English Versions of the Bible) "thorns," because of the translation of charul as "nettles" in the same verse From Isa 34:13 qimmosh is apparently distinct from thorns, and the translation "nettle" is very probable, as such neglected or deserted places as described in the three references readily become overgrown with nettles in Palestine The common and characteristic Palestine nettle is the Urtica pilulifera, so called from the globular heads of its flowers.
E. W. G. Masterman
In the topical indexes
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915); Nave's Topical Bible (1896), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.