Wormwood, αψίνθιον or άψινθος in Greek, is a star or angel that appears
in the Book of Revelation.
In the Bible Artemisia herba-alba is thought to be a plant
translated as "wormwood" in English language versions of the Bible. Wormwood is mentioned
seven times in the Jewish Bible, always with the implication of bitterness.
Although the word wormwood appears several times in the Old Testament, translated from
the Hebrew term לענה, its only clear reference as a named entity occurs in the New Testament,
in the Book of Revelation: "The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing
like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water—
the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people
died from the waters that had become bitter." Interpretations
Certain commentators have held that this "great star" represents one of several important
figures in political or ecclesiastical history, while other Bible dictionaries and commentaries
view the term as a reference to a celestial being. A Dictionary of The Holy Bible states,
"the star called Wormwood seems to denote a mighty prince, or power of the air, the
instrument, in its fall." Historicist
Various religious groups and figures, including Seventh-day Adventists and the theologians
Matthew Henry and John Gill, regard the verses of Revelation 8 as symbolic references to
past events in human history. In the case of Wormwood, some historicist interpreters
believe that this figure represents the army of the Huns as led by king Attila, pointing
to chronological consistencies between the timeline of prophecy they have accepted and
the history of the Huns' campaign in Europe. Others point to Arius, the emperor Constantine,
Origen or the ascetic monk Pelagius, who denied the doctrine of Original sin.
Futurist Various scientific scenarios have been theorized
on the effects of an asteroid or comet's collision with Earth. An applicable scenario theorizes
a chemical change in the atmosphere due to "heat shock" during entry and/or impact of
a large asteroid or comet, reacting oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere to produce
nitric-acid rain. Acid rain from the heat shock of a large comet or asteroid's impact
with Earth is believed by some to fit the Biblical description of the bitterness produced
by the Wormwood Star upon a third of the Earth's potable water.
Gerardus D. Bouw in his white paper "Wormwood" theorizes that since the term wormwood refers
to a bitter or poisonous plant, specifically "apsinthos, that is, absinthe wormwood" in
Revelations 8:11 and that a star falling would likely be an asteroid or comet ... the most
reasonable scenario being a comet, since they could have a chemical makeup that would make
the waters bitter and poisonous and would have to break up by some means, "in order
to fall on deep sources of water and rivers, the object cannot be in one piece when it
arrives in the atmosphere." Alternative interpretations
A number of Bible scholars consider the term Wormwood to be a purely symbolic representation
of the bitterness that will fill the earth during troubled times, noting that the plant
for which Wormwood is named, Artemisia absinthium, or Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris, is a known
Biblical metaphor for things that are unpalatably bitter. One theory is that nuclear weaponry
could be called wormwood. For example: Ukrainian synonymy 'wormwood'. They do poison the water
where they are detonated, thus explaining the correlation. Some even point to the Chernobyl
disaster as a possible fulfillment of this prophecy, as the name Chernobyl is said to
translate to "wormwood." In popular culture
In Anne Brontë's "If This Be All," the speaker of the poem makes an allusion to wormwood
in its sixth stanza: "While all the good I would impart,
The feelings I would share, Are driven backward to my heart,
And turned to wormwood there;" In C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, a senior
demon named Screwtape wrote thirty-one letters to his nephew, Wormwood, a younger and less
experienced demon, who is charged with guiding a man toward "Our Father Below" and away from
"the Enemy". The character Lebedyev in Fyodor Dostoevsky's
The Idiot interprets the "Star of Wormwood" as the network of railways spread across Europe.
In the Christ Clone Trilogy by James BeauSeigneur, Wormwood is an asteroid.
In an episode of Bonanza called "The Wormwood Cup", the theme of bitterness affecting two
antagonists leads to conflict. In the Stephen King short story Home Delivery,
an alien object enters Earth's orbit and causes the dead to rise as zombies and attack the
living; the hellish object, a meteor-sized ball made up of many writhing worms, is referred
to as "Star Wormwood." Also, in "The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger," Sylvia Pittson, the
preacher-woman in the town of Tull, makes reference to the "Star Wormword" while she
speaks of Satan during a Sabbath. In another Stephen King book, Under the Dome, Star Wormwood
is mentioned several times by Chef Bushey. Star Wormwood is also mentioned by Mother
Carmody in King's short story "The Mist" and its film adaptation. Similarly, in his early
novel Carrie, the title character recalls her religiously fanatical mother citing the
name. Finally, in King's novel Cell, a woman mentions star Wormwood when comparing the
previous events in Boston to the Book of Revelation, shortly after Clay, Tom, and Alice leave the
city. In the film Naked, directed by Mike Leigh,
the main character, when discussing the Book of Revelation, points out that the Russian
word for wormwood is Chernobyl. In the film The Seventh Seal, written and
directed by Ingmar Bergman, the reading of the Book of Revelation by Karin, Block's wife,
at the end of the film includes "the name of the star is called Wormwood" as the subtitle
translation. In The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke
and Stephen Baxter, a meteor called Wormwood is heading for our planet. In the Shadowmancer
series of books by G.P. Taylor, Wormwood is a comet headed straight for London which will
destroy Earth. In the DC Comics miniseries Kingdom Come,
the Secretary General of the United Nations is named Wyrmwood. He calls down a nuclear
strike to rid the world of all metahumans. The popular comic strip Calvin and Hobbes,
by Bill Watterson, has Calvin's domineering school teacher named Miss Wormwood.
In "Invasion of the Bane", an episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, Sarah Jane Smith speaks
of the star called Wormwood falling to Earth and poisoning the water. The enemy in this
episode was an alien called Mrs. Wormwood. In the manga series Angel Sanctuary, the Egg
of Wormwood is kept hidden in Hades, and used to summon a meteor that will wipe out one
third of earth's population, the devils and those who have blasphemed against God.
In the "Vampire the Masquerade" and "World of Darkness" role-playing game, Wormwood is
the harbinger comet that heralds the Time of Judgment, which precipitates the End Times,
Gehenna & Apocalypse. In the Rifts role-playing game, Wormwood is
an alternate dimension, specifically a living planet which is the only accessible location
within the dimension. In Vampire the Masquerade, Wormwood is the vampires' name for the star
Nemesis as it appears in the sky, growing brighter and larger, in the events leading
up to the possible end of the world in the year 2000.
The sixth season of the American television drama Dexter features two antagonists known
as the "Doomsday Killers", who commit bizarre ritualistic murders in the likeness of events
depicted in the Book of Revelation in an attempt to bring about the end times. In the season's
tenth episode, "Ricochet Rabbit", it is revealed that the Doomsday Killers have built a chemical
weapon which they call Wormwood, and plan to detonate the weapon at the headquarters
of the Miami Metro Police Department. In the Wheel of Time series, Padan Fain, whose
evil corrupts all those who spend time with him, sometimes goes by the name Ordeith, which
means "wormwood" in the Old Tongue. In the young adult novel series The Fallen
Wormwood, bearing the title the Abomination of desolation, is summoned by a blind trumpeter
to start the End of the World and is subsequently defeated by Aaron Corbett and his band of
nephilim warriors. In 2009, the black metal band Marduk released
an album, titled Wormwood. In 2010, the hard rock band Fozzy released
an album titled Chasing the Grail. The last song on the album is titled "Wormwood", and
talks about the star, and the entire Book of Revelation.
In 2010, the deathcore band The Acacia Strain released an album titled Wormwood.
In the TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker episode "They have been, they are, they will
be". A group of alien abduction survivors are meeting, with one of the abductees describing
"The destructive star Wormwood, is not a star but a missile".
In Cold Days, by Jim Butcher, "Wormwood" is the label on a jar sitting on a shelf in the
hut of the fairy queens Mother Winter and Mother Summer. Other jars on the shelf include
Typhos, Pox, Atermors, Choleros, and Malaros, meaning Typhus, Small Pox, The Black Death,
Cholera, and Malaria. In 2012, Disney animated television program
Sofia the First, Wormwood is a raven and familiar of Cedric the Sorcerer.
In the CW TV series Supernatural, the Revelation passage is used in the episode "Good God,
Y'all". References
^ Lewis, James R., Oliver, Evelyn Dorothy, Angels A to Z, Entry: Wormwood, p. 417, Visible
Ink Press ^ Musselman, Lytton John. "Wormwood". Plant
Site: Bible Plants. Old Dominion University. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
^ Henry, Matthew, Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume VI: Revelation Chap. VIII, Public
domain, Library of Congress call no: BS490.H4, at Christian Classics Ethereal Library
^ Rand, W. W., A Dictionary of the Holy Bible: for general use in the study of the scriptures;
with engravings, maps, and tables, Entry: WORM WOOD at archive.org
^ a b Gill, John, Exposition of the Entire Bible, Revelation 8:10 at bible.crosswalk.com
^ Nichol, Francis D, The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Volume 7, Revelation, p.
789, Review and Herald Publishing Association, Washington, D.C.
^ Hooper Virtual Natural History Museum citing Prinn and Fegley, 1987
^ The Messianic Literary Corner ^ "Wormwood
^ Johnson, B. W., The People's New Testament, The Revelation of John, Chapter VIII: The
Seventh Seal Opened at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library
^ Revelation in the Geneva Study Bible at bible.crosswalk.com
^ e.g. here at www.theforbiddenknowledge.com and here
^ The city is named after the Ukrainian word for mugwort or wormwood, which is чорнобиль
"chornobyl". The word is a combination of the words chornyi and byllia, hence it literally
means black grass or black stalks. That may signify burnt grass, perhaps prior to cultivation.
^ p. 51 of the Revised edition. External links
Revelation 8:11 The name of the star is called Wormwood
Wormwood at Biblical Proportions Bible Dictionary and Index