Topic
Wormwood, the Star
2 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 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 They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently.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.
- Lamentations 3:15ISBE
He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
- Revelation 8:11ISBE
And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 2 references
In Re 8:11, the name is figurative, given to a great star which, at the sounding of the third angel's trumpet, fell from heaven upon the third part of the rivers and on the fountains of the waters, turning them to a bitterness of which many died. Wormwood is used of bitter calamities (of La 3:15), and may here indicate some judgment, inflicted under a noted leader, affecting chiefly the internal sources of a country's prosperity. Older expositors, applying the earlier trumpets to the downfall of the Roman empire, saw in the star a symbol of the barbarian invasions of Attila or Genseric.
See also ASTRONOMY, sec. I, 8.
James Orr
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.