WORMWOOD — the bitter Artemisia shrub of the Near East, the Bible's standing image for a taste that punishes. It arrives in pairs: 'a root bearing rosh and la'anah' (Deuteronomy 29:18), and here 'I am feeding them WORMWOOD and giving them mei-rosh to drink' (Jeremiah 23:15) — rosh being a second bitter or venomous plant, KJV's 'water of gall.' Lamentations makes it the taste of the whole catastrophe, 'the wormwood and the gall' (3:19). Not poison in the sense of a quick death; the point is that it must be swallowed and it cannot be enjoyed. Greek apsinthos carries it into Revelation 8:11 as the name of a falling star. → first discussed at Jer 23:15