Hedge

A hedge can be protection or confinement, and the Bible uses it both ways. Satan says of Job, “Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house,” a picture of God’s care. In Isaiah 5 a vineyard owner takes away the hedge, and the vineyard is eaten up. Ezekiel 22:30 has God looking for someone to “make up the hedge, and stand in the gap,” and finding no one. The sufferer in Lamentations 3:7 feels hedged in with no way out. Ecclesiastes 10:8 is blunt: “whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.” Start with Job 1, then Isaiah 5.

17 verses

Numbers

Numbers 22:24

But the angel of the LORD stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side.

Job

Job 1:10

Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.

Psalms

Psalms 62:3

How long will ye imagine mischief against a man? ye shall be slain all of you: as a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence.

Proverbs

Proverbs 15:19

The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns: but the way of the righteous is made plain.

Proverbs 24:30

I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;

Proverbs 24:31

And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.

Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 10:8

He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.

Isaiah

Isaiah 5:2

And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

Isaiah 5:5

And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:

Jeremiah

Jeremiah 49:3

Howl, O Heshbon, for Ai is spoiled: cry, ye daughters of Rabbah, gird you with sackcloth; lament, and run to and fro by the hedges; for their king shall go into captivity, and his priests and his princes together.

Lamentations

Lamentations 3:7

He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.

Ezekiel

Ezekiel 13:5

Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.

Ezekiel 22:30

And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.

Hosea

Hosea 2:6

Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.

Micah

Micah 7:4

The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.

Nahum

Nahum 3:17

Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.

Matthew

Matthew 21:33

Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:

From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

The Hebrew words thus rendered denote simply that which surrounds or encloses, whether it be a stone wall, geder , (Proverbs 24:31; Ezekiel 42:10) or a fence of other materials. The stone walls which surround the sheepfolds of modern Palestine are frequently crowned with sharp thorns.

Based on Nave's Topical Bible by Orville J. Nave (1896). Dictionary entries from Smith's Bible Dictionary. Public domain. KJV scripture text, public domain.