Wormwood

Although the word wormwood appears several times in the Old Testament, translated from the Hebrew term לענה (la'anah), e.g., Deuteronomy 29:18 and Jeremiah 9:15, its only clear reference as a named entity occurs in the New Testament book of Revelation: "And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." (Revelation 8:10, 11 - KJB).

Certain commentators have held that this "great star" represents one of several important figures in political or ecclesiastical history,^[2] 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, of sore judgments on large numbers of the wicked."^[3]