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Bible Dictionaries
Gourd
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
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GOURD ( kîkâyôn , Jonah 4:5 ). The similarity of the Heb. to the Egyp. kiki , the castor-oil plant, suggests this as Jonah’s gourd. This plant, Ricinus communis , often attains in the East the dimensions of a considerable tree. The bottle-gourd, Cucurbita lagenaria , which is often trained over hastily constructed booths, seems to satisfy the conditions of the narrative much better.
Wild gourds ( pakkû‘ôth , 2 Kings 4:39 ) were either the common squirting-cucumber ( Ecballium elalerium ), one of the most drastic of known cathartics, or, more probably, the colocynth ( Citrullus colocynlhis ), a trailing vine-like plant with rounded gourds, intensely bitter to the taste and an irritant poison.
E. W. G. Masterman.
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Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Bibliography Information
Hastings, James. Entry for 'Gourd'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/g/gourd.html. 1909.
Hastings, James. Entry for 'Gourd'. Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdb/g/gourd.html. 1909.
