Bramble
Bramble
is, in Isa 34:13, the rendering of the Heb. חוֹחִ, cho'ach, a thorn in general (rendered elsewhere "thistle" or "thorn"), as in Lu 6:44, it stands for the Greek βάτος, in the similar sense of any prickly shrub; but in Jg 9:14-15, it represents the term אָטִד, atad' (Ps 58:9, "thorn"), which is generally thought to denote the Southern buckthorn (" spina Christi," or Christ's thorn, from the tradition that it furnished the thorny crown for our Saviour before his crucifixion), the Rhamnus paliurus of Linn., a brier-bush indigenous in Egypt (Cyrenaica according to Pliny, 13:33) and Syria, shooting up from the root in many branches (10 to 15 feet high), armed with spines, and bearing leaves resembling those of the olive, but light-colored and more slenuer, with little whitish blossoms that eventually produce small, black, bitter berries (see Prosp. Alpin. Plantt. Eg. c. 5). The Arabs still call it atad (more commonly ausuj), a name that appears to have been in use among the Africans (i.e. Carthaginians), according to Dioscorides (Gloss. i, 119, ῤάμνος, Α᾿φροὶ Α᾿ταδίν). Rauwolf (Trav. p. 460) found it growing at Jerusalem.
It was employed for hedges; the Hebrews used it for fuel (Ps 58; Ps 10). In the apologue or fable of Jotham (q.v.), which has always been admired for its spirit and application (Jg 9:8-15), and has been considered the oldest allegory of the kind extant, this thorn-bush is the emblem of a tyrant. The word elsewhere occurs only in the name ATAD (Ge 50:10-11). See.generally Celsii Hierobot, i, 199 sq.; Sprengel, ad Dioscor. ii, 397; Kitto, Phys. Hist. of Palest. p. ccxxxvi; Penny Cyclopcedia, s.v. Paliurus. SEE THORN.
