298 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



self, says Mr. Taylor, can the tamarisk live in a sah land ? in parch- 

 ed places ? He thinks not, and therefore proposes to seek the He- 

 brew orur among the lichens, a species of plants which are the last 

 productions of vegetation, under the severe cold of the frozen zone, 

 and under the glowing heats of the equatorial deserts; so that it 

 seems best qualified to endure parched places, and a salt land. 



HEMLOCK, 



THE word in Hebrew is used to denote a deadly poison in gen- 

 eral, whether animal or vegetable : Deut. xxix. 18, margin, &c. It 

 is frequently joined with wormwood; and from a comparison of 

 Ps. Ixix. 22, with John xix. 29, the learned Bochart thinks this 

 herb in the Psalms to be the same as the Evangelist calls hyssop, a 

 species of which growing in Judea, he proves to be bitter ; adding, 

 that * it is so bitter as not to be eatable.' 



From Hos. x. 4, &c. it seems that this word is also used to de- 

 note some particular vegetable : * Judgment springeth up as hem- 

 lock, in the furrows of the field.' Here the comparison, as Mr. 

 Taylor suggests, is to a bitter herb, which, growing among corn, 

 overpowers the useful vegetable, and substitutes a pernicious weed. 

 If the comparison be to a plant growing in the furrows of the 

 field, strictly speaking, he continues, then we are much restricted 

 in our plants, likely to answer this character ; but if we may take 

 the ditches around, or the moist and sunken places within the field 

 also, then we may include other plants, and there is no reason why 

 hemlock may not be intended. 



WORMWOOD. 



THIS may very properly follow hemlock, or gall ; as it is so fre- 

 quently united with it in scripture. It must be observed, that the 

 disagreeable effects attributed to this plant (Deut. xxix. 18 ; Prov. 

 v. 4; Jer. ix. 15 ; ch. xxiii. 15 ; Amos v. 7 ; and Rev. viii. 11), by 

 no means accord with the wormwood of Europe, which is rather a 

 salutary herb than a deadly poison. The true wormwood, there- 

 fore, may not be intended, but some plant allied to it, either in 

 form or appearance ; or which if it be of the same class, differs by 

 its more formidable properties. The LXX. usually translate the 

 word by terms expressive of its figurative sense. 



