Hebrew word · H1863
דַּרְדַּר
vedardar
thistle
Qots means thorn or thorny scrub. Dardar means thistle, or possibly a caltrop-like spiny weed. Together they mean the weeds that take over untended land.
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
thistles, thorns
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
Qots means thorn or thorny scrub. Dardar means thistle, or possibly a caltrop-like spiny weed. Together they mean the weeds that take over untended land.
- Against the English
English 'thorns and thistles' is accurate. What a reader may miss is that the exact pair appears only here and in Genesis 3:18.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Genesis 3:18: 'thorns and thistles (qots vedardar) it shall bring forth for you.' Isaiah uses similar images of thorn and brier overrunning ruined sites (Isa 5:6; 32:13; 34:13). Overgrown sanctuaries are a standard ancient Near Eastern picture of a ruin no one tends.
Similar words
Where it appears
Genesis · 1
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Genesis 3:18 וְדַרְדַּ֖ר and thistle[s]
Both thorns and thistles it will yield for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
Hosea · 1
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Hosea 10:8 וְדַרְדַּ֔ר and thistle[s]
The high places of Aven will be destroyed—it is the sin of Israel; thorns and thistles will overgrow their altars. Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!”
Here: Thistle or caltrop-type weed. The exact pair 'thorn and thistle' occurs elsewhere only in Genesis 3:18, so the phrase pictures land returning to curse and wilderness.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.