37. When 'tis said that _Elias_ lay and slept under a Juniper Tree, some may wonder how that Tree, which in our parts groweth but low and shrubby, should afford him shade and covering. But others know that there is a lesser and a larger kind of that Vegetable; that it makes a Tree in its proper soil and region. And may find in _Pliny_ that in the Temple of _Diana Saguntina_ in _Spain_, the Rafters were made of Juniper. In that expression of _David_,[227] _Sharp Arrows of the mighty, with Coals of Juniper_; Though Juniper be left out in the last Translation, yet may there be an Emphatical sense from that word; since Juniper abounds with a piercing Oil, and makes a smart Fire. And the rather, if that quality be half true, which _Pliny_ affirmeth, that the Coals of Juniper raked up will keep a glowing Fire for the space of a year. For so the expression will Emphatically imply, not onely the _smart burning, but the lasting fire of their malice_. [227] Psal. 120. 4. That passage of _Job_,[228] wherein he complains that poor and half famished fellows despised him, is of greater difficulty; _For want and famine they were solitary, they cut up Mallows by the Bushes, and Juniper roots for meat_. Wherein we might at first doubt the Translation, not onely from the Greek Text but the assertion of _Dioscorides_, who affirmeth that the roots of Juniper are of a venomous quality. But _Scaliger_ hath disproved the same from the practice of the African Physicians, who use the decoction of Juniper roots against the Venereal Disease. The Chaldee reads it _Genista_, or some kind of Broom, which will be also unusual and hard Diet, except thereby we understand the _Orobanche_, or Broom Rape, which groweth from the roots of Broom; and which, according to _Dioscorides_, men used to eat raw or boiled in the manner of _Asparagus_. [228] Job 30. 3, 4. And, therefore, this expression doth highly declare the misery, poverty and extremity of the persons who were now mockers of him; they being so contemptible and necessitous, that they were fain to be content, not with a mean Diet, but such as was no Diet at all, the roots of Trees, the roots of Juniper, which none would make use of for Food, but in the lowest necessity, and some degree of famishing. [Sidenote: _Scarlet Tincture, in_ Gen. 38. 28. Exod. 25. 4, etc.]