Brier

This word occurs several times in our translation of the Bible, but with various authorities from the original.

1. הברקנים , Jdg 8:7; Jdg 8:16, is a particular kind of thorn.

2. הרק , Pro 15:19; Mic 7:4.

It seems hardly possible to determine what kind of plant this is. Some kind of tangling prickly shrub is undoubtedly meant. In the former passage there is a beautiful opposition, which is lost in our rendering: “The narrow way of the slothful is like a perplexed path among briers; whereas the broad road” (elsewhere rendered causeway) “of the righteous is a high bank;”

that is, free from obstructions, direct, conspicuous, and open. The common course of life of these two characters answers to this comparison. Their manner of going about business, or of transacting it, answers to this. An idle man always takes the most intricate, the most oblique, and eventually the most thorny, measures to accomplish his purpose; the honest and diligent man prefers the most open and direct. In Micah, the unjust judge, taking bribes, is a brier, holding every thing that comes within his reach, hooking all that he can catch.

3. סרבים , Eze 2:6. This word is translated by the Septuagint, παροιστρησουσιν, stung by the aestrus, or gadfly; and they use the like word in Hos 4:16, where, what in our version is “a backsliding heifer,” they render “a heifer stung by the oestrus.” These coincident renderings lead to the belief that both places may be understood of some venomous insect. The word סרר may lead us to sar-ran, by which the Arabs thus describe “a great bluish fly, having greenish eyes, its tail armed with a piercer, by which it pesters almost all horned cattle, settling on their heads, &c. Often it creeps up the noses of asses. It is a species of gadfly; but carrying its sting in its tail.”

4. סלין , Eze 28:24, and סלונים , Eze 2:6, must be classed among thorns. The second word Parkhurst supposes to be a kind of thorn, overspreading a large surface of ground, as the dew brier. It is used in connection with קוצ , which, in Gen 3:18, is rendered thorns. The author of “Scripture Illustrated” queries, however, whether, as it is associated with “scorpions” in Eze 2:6, both this word and serebim may not mean some species of venomous insects.

5. סרפר , mentioned only in Isa 55:13, probably means a prickly plant; but what particular kind it is impossible to determine.

6. שמיר , This word is used only by the Prophet Isaiah, and in the following places: Isa 5:6; Isa 7:23-25; Isa 9:17; Isa 10:17; Isa 27:4; and Isa 32:13. It is probably a brier of a low kind, such as overruns uncultivated lands.

Jdg 8:7,16: "Gideon said, I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers." Gesenius for "briers" translates "with threshing machines with stones or flints underneath," barquan being iron pyrites. But the KJV is supported by the old versions; prickly plants such as grow on strong ground. In Eze 2:6 Gesenius translates as margin "rebels"; "though rebellions men like thorns be with thee." But "briers" answers better to "thorns" which follows: sarubim from saaraph, "to sting." The wicked are often so called (2Sa 23:6; Son 2:2). In Isa 55:13 "instead of the brier (sirpad) shall come up the myrtle tree." The sirpad, from saaraph "to sting," and saphad "to prick," is the nettle.

is the rendering in the Auth. Vers. of the following words in certain passages, most of them being rendered " thorn" in others. SEE THORN.

1. חֵדֶק, che’dek (from its stinging), Mic 7:4; "thorn," Pro 15:19; apparently the Arabic chadak, thought to be the Melongena spinosa, i.e. Solanumn insanum of Linn., or " prickly mad-apple" (Abulfadli, op. Celsii Hierob. ii, 40 sq.). From both passages it appears that the Heb. word denotes a species of thorn shrubs which were used for enclosures or hedges. Yet this characteristic is much too general to determine from it with any precision what particular species of thorny plants is denoted by the Hebrew word. But the plant whose fruit is the love-apple or mad-apple (a species of small melon) is of the family of nightshades (solanese), and not at all suitable for making a hedge.

2. סִלּוֹן, sallon’ ("thorn," Ezekiel ii, 6), or סַלּוֹן, sillon’ (so called as being a pendulous or twig-like extremity), Eze 28:24; prop. a prickle, such as are found on the shoots of the palm-tree, and called in Arabic sultan, being the thorns that precede the putting forth of the foliage and branches.

3. סרְפָּד, sirpad’, in Isa 55:13; "instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree." The Sept. has κόνυζα, which is a strong-smelling plant of the endive kind, flea-bane, Inula helenium, Linn. (Aristotle, Hist. An. 4:8, 28; Diosc. 3:126). The Peshito has zetur, satureia, savory, wild thyme, Thymus serpyllum, a plant growing in great abundance in the desert of Sinai according to Burckhardt (Syr. ii). Gesenius (Thes. s.v.) rejects both these on etymological grounds, and prefers urtica (the rendering of the Vulg.) or nettle, considering the Heb. name to be a compound of סָרִ, to burn, and סָפִד, to sting. He also notices the opinion of Ewald (Gram. Crit. p. 520) that Sinapi album, the white mustard, is the plant meant, after the suggestion of Simonis. who compares the Syriac name of this plant, shephia.

4. שָׁמַיר, shamir’ (from its sharpness), the most frequent term, and always so rendered (Isa 5:6; Isa 7:23-25; Isa 9:18; Isa 10:17; Isa 27:4; Isa 32:13), apparently a collective term for thorny Oriental shrubs; comp. the Arabic shamura, the Egyptian thorn-tree. It is merely spoken of as springing up in desolated lands; in two passages (Isa 10:17; Isa 27:4), it is put metaphorically for troublesome men. The Sept. renders usually ἄκανθα, sometimes χόρτος or ἄγρωστος ξηρά

5. In Heb 6:8, the Gr. word is τρίβολος (threepronged), tribulus, the land caltrop ("thistle," Mat 7:16), a low thorny shrub, so called from the resemblance of its spikes to the military "crow-foot," an instrument thrown on the ground to impede cavalry; the Tribulus terrestris of Linnaeus.

Neither of the remaining Heb. words so rendered appear to designate any species of plant. One of these is בִּרְקָנַים, barkanim’ (Jdg 8:7; Jdg 8:16; Sept. merely Greecizes βαρκανίμ), mentioned as one of the instruments by which Gideon punished the elders of Succoth; probably threshing- sledges, so called from the bottom being set with flint-stones, which the word seems prop. to denote. The other is סָרָבַים, sarabim’ (apparently from the Chald. root סָרִב, to be refractory), rebels, which are compared with thorns, Eze 2:6 (Sept. παροιστήσουσιν, as if for סבב; Vulg. increduli). Some of the rabbins understand thorns, and Castell (in his Lex. Heptagl.) renders nettles; but the other interpretation is defended by Celsius (Hierob. ii, 222).

See BRAMBLE:

BRIER.—See Thorns.

brı̄´ẽr. See THORNS.

Isa 5:6 (b) Briers are symbols of the little bothersome troubles that hurt and hinder GOD’s people. GOD promised to send them on Israel because of their disobedience. Briers are small, not as large as thorns, but they are very painful and troublesome. (See also under THORNS, THISTLES, NETTLES and BRAMBLES. See also Isa 7:23; Isa 32:13; Eze 28:24).

Isa 9:18 (b) GOD’s wrath is to be kindled so greatly that He would cease dealing with His people by small punishments, but rather would abandon them to their enemies. (See also Isa 10:17).

Isa 27:4 (b) Man’s antagonism to GOD is compared to the little brier which is so easily destroyed, and which is so inconsequential. (See also Eze 2:6).

Isa 55:13 (c) Here the brier is a type of human troubles which are to be replaced by GOD’s blessings. (See under THISTLE).

Mic 7:4 (a) The brier in this case represents a little, weak, frail man who thinks he is somebody, when he really is a cipher (Gal 6:3). This man sets himself up against GOD, and GOD in derision compares him to the little, weak, troublesome brier that is soon destroyed.

Heb 6:8 (b) Briers in this case represent hateful, harmful and hurtful expressions that come from the heart of one who knows better, and who should be producing fruit and flowers for GOD. GOD does not bless briers. The one who produces them will surely come under the curse of GOD.