Proverbs 5:4

4. Bitter as wormwood As the accursed or poisonous herb or root. The ancients regarded this herb, whatever it was, as poisonous. There are sundry passages referring to it as noxious. See Deuteronomy 29:18; Hebrews 12:15; Revelation 8:10-11. “Wormwood,” says Zockler, “is a plant about two feet high, belonging to the genus artemesia, ( artemesia absinthium,) which produces a very firm stock with many branches, grayish leaves, and small, almost round, pendent blossoms. It has a bitter and saline taste, and seems to have been regarded as a poison.” It was a fitting popular emblem of the results of illicit love. Such love is full of poison, and in the end will be as destructive as a double-edged sword. This is more plainly stated in the following verse.