Bible Dictionary
Thorn
A thorn is a sharp-spined or prickly plant. Scripture uses several Hebrew and Greek terms for different thorny shrubs, including plants associated by some with the crown placed on Jesus’ head.
Definition
A thorn is a sharp-spined or prickly plant. Scripture uses several Hebrew and Greek terms for thorny shrubs, hedging plants, and other vegetation with spines.
Biblical Usage
Thorns represent prickly growth and the consequences associated with the cursed ground. Some interpreters have connected one thorn species with the crown placed on Jesus’ head before his crucifixion.
Historical Background
Suggested plants include a thorny Solanum, Ononis spinosa, the jujube or Zizyphus spina Christi, and Rhamnus or Lycium. Thorny shrubs were common throughout Palestine.
Scripture References
Related Figures
Historical Bible Dictionaries
Easton's Bible Dictionary
(1.) Heb. hedek (Prov. 15:19), rendered “brier” in Micah 7:4. Some thorny plant, of the Solanum family, suitable for hedges. This is probably the so-called “apple of Sodom,” which grows very abundantly in the Jordan valley. “It is a shrubby plant, from 3 to 5 feet high, with very branching stems, thickly clad with spines, like those of the English brier, with leaves very large and woolly on the under side, and thorny on the midriff.” (2.) Heb. kotz (Gen. 3:18; Hos. 10:8), rendered akantha by the LXX. In the New Testament this word akantha is also rendered “thorns” (Matt. 7:16; 13:7; Heb. 6:8). The word seems to denote any thorny or prickly plant (Jer. 12:13). It has been identified with the Ononis spinosa by some. (3.) Heb. na’atzutz (Isa. 7:19; 55:13). This word has been interpreted as denoting the Zizyphus spina Christi, or the jujube-tree. It is supposed by some that the crown of thorns placed in wanton cruelty by the Roman soldiers on our Saviour’s brow before his crucifixion was plaited of branches of this tree. It overruns a great part of the Jordan valley. It is sometimes called the lotus-tree. “The thorns are long and sharp and recurved, and often create a festering wound.” It often grows to a great size. (See CROWN OF THORNS.) (4.) Heb. atad (Ps. 58:9) is rendered in the LXX. and Vulgate by Rhamnus, or Lycium Europoeum, a thorny shrub, which is common all over Palestine. From its resemblance to the box it is frequently called the box-thorn.