PLANTS IN SCRIPTURE 149 



which lay hold of what grows near them, and so can 

 hardly be weeded without endangering the neighbouring 

 corn. 



However, if by zixania we understand herbas segeti 

 noxiasy or vit'ta segetum, as some expositors have done, 

 and take the word in a more general sense, compre- 

 hending several weeds and vegetables offensive unto 

 corn, according as the Greek word in the plural 

 number may imply, and as the learned Laurenbergius 1 

 hath expressed, ruruare, quod apud nostraies iveden 

 dicitur y zizanias inu tiles est tvellere. If, I say, it be 

 thus taken, we shall not need to be definite, or confine 

 unto one particular plant, from a word which may 

 comprehend divers. And this may also prove a safer 

 sense, in such obscurity of the original. 



And, therefore, since in this parable the sower of 

 the zizania is the devil, and the zizania wicked persons ; 

 if any from this larger accepiion will take in thisdes, 

 darnel, cockle, wild straggling fitches, bindweed, triiu/us, 

 restharrow, and other vitia segetum; he may, both from 

 the natural and symbolical qualities of those vegetables, 

 have plenty of matter to illustrate the variety of his 

 mischiefs, and of the wicked of this world. 



49. When 'tis said in Job, " Let thisdes grow up 



1 Di Horti Cutiura. 



