Dictionaries :: Nettle

Easton's Bible Dictionary

Nettle:

(1.) Heb. haral, "pricking" or "burning," Pro 24:30, 31 (R.V. marg., "wild vetches"); Job 30:7; Zep 2:9. Many have supposed that some thorny or prickly plant is intended by this word, such as the bramble, the thistle, the wild plum, the cactus or prickly pear, etc. It may probably be a species of mustard, the Sinapis arvensis, which is a pernicious weed abounding in corn-fields. Tristram thinks that this word "designates the prickly acanthus (Acanthus spinosus), a very common and troublesome weed in the plains of Palestine."

(2.) Heb. qimmosh, Isa 34:13; Hsa 9:6; Pro 24:31 (in both versions, "thorns"). This word has been regarded as denoting thorns, thistles, wild camomile; but probably it is correctly rendered "nettle," the Urtica pilulifera, "a tall and vigorous plant, often 6 feet high, the sting of which is much more severe and irritating than that of our common nettle."

King James Dictionary

Nettle: Thorny Shrub; Prickly Weed.

I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and NETTLES had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. (Proverbs 24:30-31)

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Nettle:

a well‐known plant covered with minute sharp hairs; containing a poison that produces a painful, stifling sensation. It grows on neglected ground. A different Hebrew word in Job 30:7; Proverbs 24:31; Zephaniah 2:9 seems to indicate a different species.