Bible Dictionary
Brier
A brier is a thorny or prickly plant, including various shrubs, thistles, and the land-caltrop. Briers symbolize desolation, barrenness, and troublesome people or circumstances.
Definition
A brier is a thorny or prickly plant. The biblical term may refer to a thorn shrub used in hedges, a palm prickle, a thorny bush generally, or the land caltrop, a low plant with three-pronged spikes.
Biblical Usage
Briers and thorny shrubs symbolize desolation, barrenness, and troublesome people. The land caltrop is used in a comparison involving plants that cannot yield useful fruit.
Historical Background
The word translates several different Hebrew terms and does not designate one single botanical species. Some references have been associated with the nettle or the so-called apple of Sodom.
Scripture References
Historical Bible Dictionaries
Easton's Bible Dictionary
This word occurs frequently, and is the translation of several different terms. (1.) Micah 7:4, it denotes a species of thorn shrub used for hedges. In Prov. 15:19 the word is rendered “thorn” (Heb. hedek, “stinging”), supposed by some to be what is called the “apple of Sodom” (q.v.). (2.) Ezek. 28:24, sallon’, properly a “prickle,” such as is found on the shoots of the palm tree. (3.) Isa. 55:13, probably simply a thorny bush. Some, following the Vulgate Version, regard it as the “nettle.” (4.) Isa. 5:6; 7:23-25, etc., frequently used to denote thorny shrubs in general. In 10:17; 27:4, it means troublesome men. (5.) In Heb. 6:8 the Greek word (tribolos) so rendered means “three-pronged,” and denotes the land caltrop, a low throny shrub resembling in its spikes the military “crow-foot.” Comp. Matt. 7:16, “thistle.”
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>bri'-er.</p><p>See THORNS.</p>