THE JUNIPER. 251 



THE JUNIPER. 



IT is very questionable whether this shrub is mentioned in scrip- 

 ture, though it is found in our translation. 



In 1 Kings xix. 4, we read of the prophet sheltering himself 

 under a return, [Eng. Tr. juniper-tree,] as Jonah was glad to avail 

 himself of the frail covert of a gourd from the oppressive heat of 

 the sun, Jonah iv. 8. 



In Job xxx. 3, 4, the afflicted patriarch speaks of those having 

 him in derision, 



Who were, yesterday, gnawers of the desert, 

 Of the waste nnd the wilderness ; 

 Plucking nettles from the bushes, 

 Or Juniper- [retcm] roots for their food. 



But this passage will not help us to determine whether the retem 

 be the juniper or the broom ; for the roots of neither the one nor the 

 other, nor, indeed, of any other plants in those arid deserts, could 

 furnish a nutritive article of food. The circumstance is mentioned 

 as a proof of their utter destitution, and Parkhurst has shown, from 

 several writers, that the mostinnutritive substances have been eaten 

 among many people in times and places of scarcity and famine. 

 Dr. Good quotes the following passage in Lucan, as bearing a 

 striking resemblance to the description of Job : 



He marks the wretched throng, 

 Seize food for cattle, crop the prickly brier, 

 And fell the grove with gnawing. 



The Psalmist (cxx. 4,) mentions the coals of the juniper as afford- 

 ing the fiercest fire of any combustible matter that he found in 

 the desert, and therefore the fittest punishment for a deceitful 

 tongue: 'What shall be given unto thee, or what shall be done 

 unto thee, thou false tongue ? Sharp arrows of the mighty, with 

 coals of juniper.' That is, The wrath of God, like a keen and 

 barbed arrow from the bow of the mighiy, shall pierce the strongest 

 armor, and strike deep into the hardest heart, and, like the fierce 

 and protracted flame of the juniper, shall torment the liar with un- 

 utterable anguish. 



