Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee - х qowts (H6975), a thorn (Ezekiel 28:24), but used here and Isaiah 32:13 collectively, and commonly in connection with dardar, rendered thistles (cf. Hosea 10:8), triboloi of the Septuagint, the calthropy of botanists, a kind of thistle armed with long spines]. This latter word is supposed to be derived from a root which signifies 'round,' in reference to its spherical form, or its being surrounded by a downy circlet, which makes it capable of easy and rapid revolution along the surface of the ground. The seed is furnished with means of quick and extensive dissemination, because it has a wing to waft it from place to place, and a hook by which it can fasten on any object that is in the way of its transit. Botanists have reckoned that a single seed of the common thistle will produce in the first crop 2,400, and 576,000,000 in the second crop, and so on in the same extraordinary ratio of increase. Thorns and thistles, which thus possess the natural property of reproducing themselves in so great profusion, are mentioned as prominent parts of the curse pronounced upon the earth for the sin of the first man; and experience shows that weeds of all kinds, particularly thorny or spinous plants, such as those mentioned here, which are the effects as well as the evidence of deteriorated physical conditions, would increase with such dangerous rapidity as to overrun the ground, if they were not eradicated or checked by the industry of man.