Bush

Bush - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

In which Jehovah appeared to Moses in the wilderness (Ex. 3:2; Acts 7:30). It is difficult to say what particular kind of plant or bush is here meant. Probably it was the mimosa or acacia. The words "in the bush" in Mark 12:26; Luke 20:37, mean "in the passage or paragraph on the bush;" i.e., in Ex. 3.

Bush - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

BUSH, n. [L. pasco, originally, to feed on sprouts.]

1. A shrub with branches; a thick shrub; also, a cluster of shrubs. With hunters, a fox tail.

2. An assemblage of branches interwoven.

3. A branch of a tree fixed or hung out as a tavern sign. Hence, since the branch has been discontinued, a coronated frame of wood hung out as a tavern sign, is so called. Hence the English proverb, ""Good wine needs no bush.""

[I know not that this word is thus used in the U. States.]

4. A circle of metal let into the sheaves of such blocks as have iron pins, to prevent their wearing.

This word when applied to sheaves is called bush, but when applied to the circular iron of a cart wheel is, in America, called a box.

BUSH, v.i. To grow thick or bushy.

BUSH, v.t. To furnish a block with a bush.

(1) (ceneh, Ex 3:2-4; De 33:16; batos, Mr 12:26; Lu 6:44, "bramble bush"; 20:37; Ac 7:30,35. All the Old Testament references and the New Testament references, except Lu 6:44, are to the same "bush," namely, Moses' "burning bush"). From its etymology ceneh clearly denotes a "thorny" plant, as does the corresponding batos in the Septuagint and New Testament. In the Latin versions rubus, i.e. "bramble," is used as equivalent. Several varieties of bramble flourish in Palestine, of which the most common is Rubus discolor, but this is not an indigenous plant in Sinai. It is stated by Post that a bush of this plant has been planted by the monks of the Convent of Catherine at Sinai to the rear of the "Chapel of the Burning Bush." In spite of tradition there is but little doubt that Moses' "burning bush" must actually have been a shrub of one of the various thorny acacias, or allied plants, indigenous in the Sinaitic peninsula.

(2) (siach "plant," Ge 2:5; "shrub," Ge 21:15; "bush," Job 30:4,7). In the first reference any kind of plant may be meant, but in the other passages the reference is to the low bushes or scrub, such as are found in the desert.

(3) (nahalolim, the King James Version bushes, the Revised Version (British and American) PASTURE, margin "bushes," Isa 7:19). The meaning appears to be rather a place for watering flocks, the corresponding Arabic root nahal, having the meaning "to quench one's thirst," and the corresponding noun of place, manhal, meaning a watering-place in the desert.

E. W. G. Masterman