Spiny plant that abounds in the deserts of the Middle East (Judges 8:16). †¢Spines. †¢Plants of the Bible.
Source: Christian Bible Dictionary
See THISTLE AND THORNS.
Source: New Illustrated Bible Dictionary
Thistle is the name given to a great variety of plants with woody stems with thorns or spikes. Some authorities identify the Hebrew term bar·qaním (thorns) with an Arabic cognate noun designating Centaurea scoparia, a common plant with spiny heads resembling a thistle. Gideon used bar·qaním to punish the men of Sukkot for refusing to provide his starving soldiers with bread during their fight against the Midianites. (Jg 8:6, 7, 16)
The Hebrew term che·dheq (thistle) has been identified with Solanum coagulans, a thorny thicket. (Thesaurus of the Language of the Bible, published in part by MZ Kaddari, Jerusalem, 1968, vol. 3, p. 88.) The term che·dheq is used at Proverbs 15:19, where the path of the lazy one is compared to a “hedge of thistles”, apparently because the lazy man imagines difficulties and thorny problems in any possible undertaking, which is why he excuses himself from undertaking it. The moral decay of the nation of Israel caused the prophet Micah to say that the †˜best of them was like a thistle, the straightest of them, worse than a hedge of thorns†™, obviously referring to the fact that even the best Israelites were be as injurious to those who dealt with them as a thorny thistle or a hedge of thorns that it gets too close to. (Mic 7:4.)
Source: Dictionary of the Bible
tribolos (trivbolo”, 5146) occurs in Mat 7:16 and Heb 6:8:¶ In LXX, Gen 3:18; 2Sa 12:31; Pro 22:5; Hos 10:8:¶ Cf. THORN.
Source: Vine New Testament Dictionary