Wormwood

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.

לענה, Deut. xxix, 18; Prov. v, 4; Jer. ix, 15; xxiii, 15; Lam. iii, 15, 19; Amos v, 7; vi, 12; ἄψινθον, Rev. viii, 11. In the Septuagint the original word is variously rendered, and generally by terms expressive of its figurative sense, for what is offensive, odious, or deleterious; but in the Syriac and Arabic versions, and in the Latin Vulgate, it is rendered “wormwood;” and this is adopted by Celsius, who names it the _absinthium santonicum Judaicum_, [bitter wormwood of Judea.] From the passages of Scripture, however, where this plant is mentioned, something more than the bitterness of its qualities seems to be intimated, and effects are attributed to it greater than can be produced by the wormwood of Europe. The Chaldee paraphrase gives it even the character of “the wormwood of death.” It may therefore mean a plant allied, perhaps, to the _absinthium_ in appearance and in taste, but possessing more nauseous, hurtful, and formidable properties.