BRIERS, BRIER HEDGE

[Heb., bar·qa·nimʹ; hheʹdheq]. The brier is a plant with a woody stem bearing thorns or prickles and the name may refer to numerous plants of this type. Some authorities identify the first-listed Hebrew term (bar·qa·nimʹ) with that designated by a cognate noun in Arabic: the Centaurea scoparius, a common thistlelike plant with thorny heads. Gideon used some type of brier in punishing the men of Succoth for their refusal to supply bread to his hungry soldiers during his fight against the Midianites.—Judg. 8:6, 7, 16.

Proverbs 15:19 likens the path of the lazy man to a “brier hedge,” (or, hheʹdheq) perhaps in the sense of his envisioning or imagining difficulties and thorny problems in every undertaking and thus excusing himself from moving ahead on that basis; whereas the righteous one finds his course well laid out and allowing for good progress. (Compare Isaiah 40:3.) Thorny plants were often used as hedges to protect orchards and vineyards against thieves and animals. (Isa. 5:5) Since brier plants served for little else than hedges and for fuel, the moral decay of the nation of Israel caused the prophet Micah to say of the people that their “best one is like a brier, their most upright one is worse than a thorn hedge.” (Mic. 7:4) Several thorny plants are used as hedges in the Palestinian region, one of the most common being the oleaster or Eleagnus hortensis, a plant of dense growth and strong, sharp thorns. The boxthorn (Lycium europaeum) was also used widely as a hedge, especially in the coastal regions.—See BRAMBLE; NETTLE; THORN.