Wormwood

Wormwood is a plant with an unforgettable bitterness, and Scripture borrows that taste for hard things. Proverbs warns that a seductive woman’s end is “bitter as wormwood.” Moses fears a hidden “root that beareth gall and wormwood,” a heart quietly turning from the LORD. Jeremiah hears God say that false prophets and a wayward people will be fed wormwood and given water of gall to drink. In Revelation a star is called Wormwood, and the waters turn bitter. Christians read that last scene in different ways, but the plain meaning of the word carries through all of them: sorrow that is hard to swallow.

5 verses

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 29:18

Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;

Proverbs

Proverbs 5:4

But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.

Jeremiah

Jeremiah 9:15

Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.

Jeremiah 23:15

Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.

Revelation

Revelation 8:11

And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

Heb. la’anah, the Artemisia absinthium of botanists. It is noted for its intense bitterness (Deut. 29:18; Prov. 5:4; Jer. 9:15; Amos 5:7). It is a type of bitterness, affliction, remorse, punitive suffering. In Amos 6:12 this Hebrew word is rendered “hemlock” (R.V., “wormwood”). In the symbolical language of the Apocalypse (Rev. 8:10, 11) a star is represented as falling on the waters of the earth, causing the third part of the water to turn wormwood.

The name by which the Greeks designated it, absinthion, means “undrinkable.” The absinthe of France is distilled from a species of this plant. The “southernwood” or “old man,” cultivated in cottage gardens on account of its fragrance, is another species of it.

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From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

Four kinds of wormwood are found in Palestine-- Artemisia nilotica , A. Judaica , A. fructicosa and A. cinerea . The word occurs frequently in the Bible, and generally in a metaphorical sense. In (Jeremiah 9:15; 23:15; Lamentations 3:15,19) wormwood is symbolical of bitter calamity and sorrow; unrighteous judges are said to "turn judgment to wormwood." (Amos 5:7) The Orientals typified sorrows, cruelties and calamities of any kind by plants of a poisonous or bitter nature.