CHARUL (Heb, khar-rool'), occurs in three places in Scripture, and in them all is translated 'nettles' in the A. V.
Thus in Prow. xxiv :3o, 3t, it is written, 'I went by the field of the slothful, etc., and, to ! it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles (charullim) had covered the face thereof.' So in Job xxx :7, it is stated that he was insulted by the children of those whom he would formerly have disdained to employ, and who were so ab ject and destitute that 'among the bushes they brayed ; under the nettles they were gathered to gether ;' and in Zeph. ii :9, 'Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Go morrah, even the breeding of nettles, and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation.' Considerable difficulty has been experienced in determining the plant which is alluded to in the above passages.
Hence brambles, the wild plum and thistles. have been severally selected ; but nettles have had the greatest number of supporters.
Of all these determinations, however, it must be observed that they amount to nothing more than conjectures.
All that is implied is that neglected fields, that is. fields in cultivation which are neglected, will become covered with weeds, and that these should be of a kind such as idlers, as in the passage of Job, might take shelter under. or lie down among. This passage, indeed. seems to preclude Any thorny plant or nettle, as no one would vol untarily resort to such a situation.
Moreover, it is worthy of remark that there is a word in a cognate language, the Arabic, which is not very dissimilar from charul or klia rul, and which is applied to plants, apparently quite suitable to all the above passages. The
word kluirdul is applied in all old Arabic works, as well as at the present day, to different species of mustard, and also to plants which are em ployed for the same purposes as mustard, and It is not very unlike the kharul or charul of Scrip ture. In fact, they do not differ more than many words which are considered to have been origi nally the same. Some of the wild kinds of mus tard are well known to spring up in cornfields, and to be the most troublesome of all the weeds with which the husbandman has to deal ; one of these, indeed, sinapis arvcnsis, is well-known as abun dant in our fields, where it is a very troublesome weed, and also in waste ground when newly dis turbed.
Some of these are found in Syria and Pales tine so large that one of them has been supposed to be the mustard tree alluded to by our Saviour. S. arvensis being so widely diffused, is probably also found in Palestine, though this can only be determined by a good botanist on the spot, or by a comparison of genuine specimens. But there is another species, the S. orientalis, which is common in cornfields in Syria, and south and middle Europe, and which can scarcely be dis tinguished from S. arvensis. Either of these will suit the above passages, and as the name is not very dissimilar, we are of opinion that it is better entitled to be the charul of Scripture than any other plant that has hitherto been adduced. CHASE (chas). See HUNTING.