We find this name given to two different words in the original. The first is חרול, Job xxx, 7; Proverbs xxiv, 31; Zeph. ii, 9. It is not easy to determine what species of plant is here meant. From the passage in Job, the nettle could not be intended; for a plant is referred to large enough for people to take shelter under. The following extract from Denon’s Travels may help to illustrate the text, and show to what an uncomfortable retreat those vagabonds must have resorted. One of the inconveniences of the vegetable thickets of Egypt is, that it is difficult to remain in them; as nine-tenths of the trees and the plants are armed with inexorable thorns, which suffer only an unquiet enjoyment of the shadow which is so constantly desirable, from the precaution necessary to guard against them.” The קימוש, Prov. xxiv, 31; Isaiah xxxiv, 13; Hosea ix, 6; is by the Vulgate rendered _urtica_,” which is well defended by Celsius, and very probably means the nettle.”
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