it is a word, “sesame,” which makes the rocks part, and gives admission to the treasures within; and it is oblivion of the magic word which brings destruction upon the luckless wretch within. But sesame is the name of a well-known eastern plant, sesamum orientale; so that probably in the original form of the Persian tale absorbed into the Arabian Nights, a flower was employed to give admission to the mountain. But classic antiquity has also its rock-breaking plant, the saxifraga, whose tender rootlets penetrate and dissolve the hardest stones with a force for which the Ancient were unable to account.
Isaiah, describing the desolation of the vineyard of Zion, says that “There shall come up briars and thorns” (v. 6), לשמיר ולשית יהיה (vii. 23: cf. also ix. 17; x. 17). And, “Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briars” (xxxii. 13), where שמיר is combined with קוץ. The word שית never stands alone, but is always joined with שמיר, which the LXX render ἄκανθα καὶ χόρτος; the word in the fifth chapter they render χέρσος ἄκανθαι; that in the seventh, χέρσος and ἄκανθα; so that χέρσος is put for שמיר, and ἄκανθα for שית. The word in the ninth chapter is ἄγρωστις ξηρά, that in the tenth, ὡσεὶ χόρτον τὴν
