A topic too painful to ignore – and a mercy too vast to comprehend – this is what we will talk about today. In the last blog post (or podcast), we looked at a Greek word relating to the time of the flood. Today we will go back even further, chronologically.

The Koine Greek word ΑΚΑΝΘΑ (pronounced akantha) has a broad range and can mean “thorn plant” or “thistle” or “brier.” In the plural, ΑΚΑΝΘΑI (akanthai), the word might sometimes be most easily translated into English as “thorns.” This word has a very special place in the Bible.

Did you know that there was a time on earth when no thorns existed? The word ΑΚΑΝΘΑ first appears in the Bible – that is, in the Ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures – in the tragic words that God speaks over the earth, as a curse. The curse comes in Gen 3, on account of Adam’s sin. An original bliss and perfection had been destroyed. God says in Genesis 3:18–19 (and the translation is from the New American Standard Bible):

18 Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; Yet you shall eat the plants of the field; 19 By the sweat of your face You shall eat bread, Until you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”

The Old Greek translation of the Hebrew text of Genesis 3:18–19 says this:

18 ἀκάνθας καὶ τριβόλους ἀνατελεῖ σοι, καὶ φάγῃ τὸν χόρτον τοῦ ἀγροῦ. 19 ἐν ἱδρῶτι τοῦ προσώπου σου φάγῃ τὸν ἄρτον σου ἕως τοῦ ἀποστρέψαι σε εἰς τὴν γῆν, ἐξ ἧς ἐλήμφθης· ὅτι γῆ εἶ καὶ εἰς γῆν ἀπελεύσῃ.

(I am using the Rahlfs and Hanhart edition of the Septuagint.)

These are the first negative words God speaks in the Bible, as the rupture between humanity and God is brought to light.

So thorny plants – or ΑΚΑΝΘΑI – are unequivocally linked to humanity’s downfall, the frustration of creation, and the requirement of Adam and his descendants to work the earth. They will have to toil now, contending with the thorns and thistles that the earth will now produce, in order to make the earth fruitful. They will work by the sweat of their faces.

The Greek word translates here the Hebrew term kotz (קוץ). But it can also come as a translation for other Hebrew words. (One example of it translating another Hebrew word is the phrase about a lily among thorns in Song of Solomon 2:2.)

The word ΑΚΑΝΘΑ appears in the New Testament, too. In Jesus’ parable of the sower and the seed, for example, one of the four soils receives the seed, sprouts a plant, which is then choked out by thorny plants (ΑΚΑΝΘΑI). Jesus explains that these thorn-bearing weeds are the worries of this age and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires and pleasures of life. Jesus likens these forces, which wage against our spirits, to the effects of the curse of the earth.

More important, of course, is the appearance of thorny plants during the hour of Jesus’ suffering. Typically, in competitions of sports and the like, a winner would receive a leafy wreath worn on one’s head. Like a crown, placed on the head of a king or queen, a wreath was a means of honouring someone. The beautiful growth of God’s creation was specially fashioned and purposefully employed to adorn the most notable part of a person’s body, as a mark of beauty and distinction. The use of a thorn plant for a headdress, of course, is a horrible mockery of this convention.

In contrast to the conventional demonstration of honor, Jesus received a wicked display of dishonor, as soldiers twisted a bunch of thorns on a plant branch into a wreath.

They placed the wreath of thorns on his head, kneeling before him, mockingly, hailing him as king of the Jews. The rod that they had placed in his hand as a mock king’s scepter – this they also then took and used to beat his thorn-crowned head with. Matthew 27:29–30 says (I’m citing the New International Version):

29 and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. 30 They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.

The Greek text says this (I’m drawing on the Tyndale House Greek New Testament):

29 καὶ πλέξαντες στέφανον ἐξ ἀκανθῶν ἐπέθηκαν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ καὶ κάλαμον ἐν τῇ δεξιᾷ αὐτοῦ, καὶ γονυπετήσαντες ἔμπροσθεν αὐτοῦ ἐνέπαιξαν αὐτῷ λέγοντες· χαῖρε βασιλεῦ τῶν Ἰουδαίων. 30 καὶ ἐμπτύσαντες εἰς αὐτὸν ἔλαβον τὸν κάλαμον καὶ ἔτυπτον εἰς τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ.

After this, everything went immeasurably downhill. The parallels with the original state of humanity, at peace with God, are breath-taking. There was once a tree in a garden, given to produce life, where the first man and woman, naked and unashamed, enjoyed both unbroken fellowship with one another and continual friendship with God. Now, another man, stripped of his clothing, was nailed to a dead tree, used for the purpose of murder, with thorns on his brow, abusively shamed by people around him, crying out to his God and Father over the agony of their ruptured relationship, with a sense of being forsaken by God.

The very thorns which are a noteworthy element of God’s original curse on the earth, because of Adam’s disobedience, were placed on the head of God’s beloved Son, sent to earth to save all who would believe in him. He was sent to rescue all of us who would turn from our sins to believe in and receive God’s loving mercy. Jesus could easily have resisted the evil people who treated him in this abusive way. But he didn’t. God’s overture of mercy and forgiveness was extended, through Jesus, even to the soldiers that lampooned him, placing the thorny headdress on him.

Let us never forget that there was once a time when there were no thorns on this planet. Let us not forget, not least of all because, for those of us who call Jesus our Lord, we remember that Jesus’ own head bore the punishment of human sin. Because of his enduring this suffering, out of love, he made a way so that in the future there will be a new heaven and a new earth, where pain, suffering and aberrations in creation – such as thorns of all kinds – will never be present. (Trees, however, will abide with us forever, the Scriptures inform us.)

Here is a song I’ve written for the text of the Old Greek version of Genesis 3:18–19. It begins with the word ΑΚΑΝΘΑΣ, which is the object form of ΑΚΑΝΘΑI, that is the plural of ΑΚΑΝΘA.

(For those who are interested, you can listen to the content of this post as a podcast.)