LAANAH (r1316), translated wormwood, occurs in several passages of Scripture, in most of which it is employed in a figurative sense. Thus, in Deut. xxix. 18, Lest there be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood,' is applied to such Israelites as should worship foreign gods. Prov. v. 4, But her end is bitter as wormwood.' Jer. ix. 15, • Behold I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them gall to drink.' So in Jer. xxiii. 13, and in Lam. iii. 15 and 19, Remember mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and gall,' where it is applied to public and private calamities, and in Amos v. 7, it is said of unrighteous judges, Ye who turn judg ment to wormwood :' so in vi. 12, but here the word laanah is translated hemlock. That laanah was a plant of an extreme degree of bittemess, is evident from the various passages in which it oc curs ; and it has hence, as Celsius observes, been adopted to indicate both the sins and the punish ments of men. Some translators, as the Septua gint, substitute the proper terms which they con ceive the plant to denote, as civd-pcn, ntivn, imam, and xoX7). So the Arab translator uses words sig nifying dolores, adversa, ealamitates, amaritudo. The Hebrew word laanah is supposed by graphers to have been originally derived from the same root as the Arabic laan, he was ac cursed ;' from which comes the Arabic e,.:44 Zaana, signifying, execration' or malediction ;' and as the Hebrews accounted bitter plants as per nicious and poisonous, so they typified what was disagreeable or calamitous by a bitter plant. Thus, as Celsius remarks, Talmudical writers, in speak ing of the blessings and maledictions of Moses, say, Illm mel, hm absinthium erant.' The Chaldee, and other Oriental translations, as the Syriac and Arabic, in Prov. v. 4 ; Lam. ill. 19, with the Rabbins, translate taanah by words sig nifying wormwood. This is adopted in the Vul gate, as well as in the English translation. In Revelations viii. t, we have the Greek word dpepOos employed ; And the name of the star is called wormwood, and the third part of the waters became wormwood (thinueos), and many men died of the waters, because they were bitter.
Some other plants have been adduced, as the colo cynth and the oleander, but without anything to support them ; while different kinds of artemisia, and of wormwood, are proverbial for their bitter ness, and often used in a figurative sense by ancient authors :— • Parce, precor, lacerare tuum, nec amara paternis Admiscere velis, ceu melli absinthia, verbis.' Ep. ad Ausonium.
Celsius has no doubt that a species of artemisia or wormwood is intended Hanc plantam amaram in Judxa et Arabia copiose nascentem, et inter pretum auctoritate egregie suffultam, ipsam esse Ebrmorum m6, pro indubitato habemus.' That species of artemisia arc common in Syria and Pales tine is well known, as all travellers mention their abundance in particular situations ; but as many of them resemble each other very closely in properties, it is more difficult to determine what particular species is meant. It is probable, indeed, that the name is used in a generic rather than a specific sense. The species found in Syria have already been mentioned under ABSINTHIUM. The species most cdebrated in Arabian works on Materia Medica is that called ,A.,„,1 sheen, which is conspicuous for its bitter ness, and for being fatal to worms ; hence it has been commonly employed as an anthelmintic even to our own times. This seems to be the same species which was found by Rauwolff in Palestine, and which Ile says the Ambs call scheha. lt is his Absinthium Santonicum, scheha Ambum, unde se men lumbricorum colligitur ;' the Absinthium San tonicum Yuclaicum of Caspar Bauhin, in his Pinax, now Artemisia Yua'aica ; though it is probable two or three species yield the Semoni Santonuum, or wormwood of commerce, which, instead of seed, consists of the top of the plants, and in which the peduncles, calyx flowers, and young seeds are in termixed. Artenn:sia Maritime: and Yua'aica are two of the plants which yield it.—J. F. R.