What does a bramble have to offer? In Jotham’s story in Judges 9, the trees go looking for a king, and in the end “all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us.” The bramble’s answer is half invitation and half threat: trust in my shadow, or fire will come out of me and “devour the cedars of Lebanon.” Isaiah uses the plant differently. Thorns, nettles and brambles grow in the palaces of a ruined city. In both places the bramble stands for something low and prickly that moves in when better things are gone.
3 verses
Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us.
And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.
And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
(1.) Hebrew atad, Judg. 9:14; rendered “thorn,” Ps. 58:9. The LXX. and Vulgate render by rhamnus, a thorny shrub common in Palestine, resembling the hawthorn.
(2.) Hebrew hoah, Isa. 34:13 (R.V. “thistles”); “thickets” in 1 Sam. 13:6; “thistles” in 2 Kings 14:9, 2 Chr. 25:18, Job 31:40; “thorns” in 2 Chr. 33:11, Cant. 2:2, Hos. 9:6. The word may be regarded as denoting the common thistle, of which there are many species which encumber the corn-fields of Palestine. (See THORNS.)