Noah Webster's Dictionary 1. (n.) A thicket of bushes, usually thorn bushes; especially, such a thicket planted as a fence between any two portions of land; and also any sort of shrubbery, as evergreens, planted in a line or as a fence; particularly, such a thicket planted round a field to fence it, or in rows to separate the parts of a garden. 2. (v. t.) To enclose or separate with a hedge; to fence with a thickly set line or thicket of shrubs or small trees; as, to hedge a field or garden. 3. (v. t.) To obstruct, as a road, with a barrier; to hinder from progress or success; -- sometimes with up and out. 4. (v. t.) To surround for defense; to guard; to protect; to hem (in). 5. (v. t.) To surround so as to prevent escape. 6. (v. i.) To shelter one's self from danger, risk, duty, responsibility, etc., as if by hiding in or behind a hedge; to skulk; to slink; to shirk obligations. 7. (v. i.) To reduce the risk of a wager by making a bet against the side or chance one has bet on. 8. (v. i.) To use reservations and qualifications in one's speech so as to avoid committing one's self to anything definite. Int. Standard Bible Encyclopedia HEDGE hej: (1) mecukhah, "a thorn hedge," only in Micah 7:4.; mesukkah, "a hedge" (Isaiah 5:5); mesukhath chadheq, "a hedge of thorns" (Proverbs 15:19). (2) gadher, and geherah, translated "hedges" in the Revised Version (British and American) only in Psalm 89:40, elsewhere "fence." GEDERAH (which see) in the Revised Version margin is translated "hedges" (1 Chronicles 4:23). (3) na`atsuts, "thorn-hedges" (Isaiah 7:19). (4) phragmos, translated "hedge" (Matthew 21:33 Mark 12:1 Luke 14:23); "partition" in Ephesians 2:14, which is its literal meaning. In the Septuagint it is the usual equivalent of the above Hebrew words. Loose stone walls without mortar are the usual "fences" around fields in Palestine, and this is what gadher and gedherah signify in most passages. Hedges made of cut thorn branches or thorny bushes are very common in the plains and particularly in the Jordan valley. E. W. G. Masterman

Multi-Version Concordance Hedge (12 Occurrences) Matthew 21:33 "Hear another parable. There was a man who was a master of a household, who planted a vineyard, set a hedge about it, dug a winepress in it, built a tower, leased it out to farmers, and went into another country. (WEB KJV ASV WBS YLT RSV) Mark 12:1 He began to speak to them in parables. "A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a pit for the winepress, built a tower, rented it out to a farmer, and went into another country. (WEB KJV ASV WBS YLT RSV) Job 1:10 Haven't you made a hedge around him, and around his house, and around all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. (WEB KJV JPS ASV DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Psalms 62:3 Till when do ye devise mischief against a man? Ye are destroyed all of you, As a wall inclined, a hedge that is cast down. (YLT) Proverbs 15:19 The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns: but the way of the righteous is made plain. (KJV JPS ASV DBY WBS YLT NAS) Ecclesiastes 10:8 He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him. (KJV DBY WBS YLT) Isaiah 5:5 Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall of it, and it will be trampled down. (WEB KJV JPS ASV DBY WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV) Isaiah 17:11 In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow. (WEB ASV) Ezekiel 13:5 Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD. (KJV JPS WBS) Ezekiel 22:30 And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. (KJV JPS WBS) Hosea 2:6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can't find her way. (WEB KJV JPS ASV DBY WBS NAS RSV) Micah 7:4 The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion. (WEB KJV JPS ASV WBS YLT NAS RSV NIV)