Brier

The brier is a thorny plant that the prophets press into figurative service. In the UPDV it appears alongside thorns as a marker of cursed, neglected, or hostile ground, and it sits at the boundary between two contrasting horizons — the desolation a vineyard suffers when its keeper withdraws care, and the renewal that replaces brier with myrtle when Yahweh acts.

Brier as a Figure of Desolation

When Yahweh withdraws cultivation from his vineyard, the consequence is overgrowth: "and I will lay it waste; it will not be pruned nor hoed; but there will come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it" (Isa 5:6). The brier here is the visible token of judgment — what fills the space once the vine-keeper stops his work.

Brier as a Figure of Hostile Surroundings

Ezekiel uses the brier for the human environment around the prophet and around Israel. To the prophet himself the figure pictures the audience: "And you, Son of Man, don't be afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you, and you dwell among scorpions: don't be afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house" (Eze 2:6). For Israel as a people, the brier names the surrounding nations who treated them with contempt: "And there will be no more a pricking brier to the house of Israel, nor a hurting thorn of any who are round about them, who did despite to them; and they will know that I am the Sovereign Yahweh" (Eze 28:24).

Brier Replaced in Renewal

The same plant that signals desolation also marks, by its removal, the work of restoration. In Isaiah's vision of return, the brier yields to a different kind of growth altogether: "Instead of the thorn will come up the fir-tree; and instead of the brier will come up the myrtle-tree: and it will be to Yahweh for a name, for an everlasting sign that will not be cut off" (Isa 55:13). The figure runs both directions — brier-and-thorn for what judgment leaves behind, fir-tree-and-myrtle for what Yahweh's name plants in its place.