JUNIPER-TREE, a very common sort of tree. There is mention made of it in the Latin text of Scripture, in two places. Elisha1 Kings xix. 4, 5. Rethem. flying from Jezebel, went towards Beersheba; and being overwhelmed with fatigue, lay down under a Juniper-tree. The Hebrew Rethem which S. Jerom, after Aquila, translates a Juniper-tree, in the Syriac is rendred a turpentine tree, and in the Chaldee, Broom. The Septuagint keep to the Hebrew word rathem or rhetem, and Symmachus explains it only by a covert or shelter. In the vulgate text of Job there is mention likewise of a juniper tree; the root of the juniper tree was their meat. But as the root of the Juniper-tree is by no means fit to eat, no more than that of the turpentine tree or broom, this translation is very much to be questioned. Wherefore it is probable enough, that the Habrew, rhetem may signify in general any wild shrub or plant.
The Greek rhathamnos, which comes from the Hebrew rathom, signifies in general a young plant, a sucker, a shoot, &c.