Exodus 30:34 - Exposition

Take unto thee sweet spices. Rather, "Take unto thee spices," or "perfumes." The word has no epithet. Stacte. The Hebrew word used means simply "a drop" ( Job 32:1-22 :27), and might be applied to any gum or resin which exuded from a tree. We have no clue to the gum here intended but that which is furnished by the rendering of the LXX ; στακτή , which our translators have followed. Now the Greeks seem to have called two gums by this name—one, the natural exudation from the myrrh tree, called above ( Exodus 30:23 ) "pure myrrh," or "the myrrh that flows freely;" and the other gum storax. As it is not likely that the same substance has been given two names within the space of ten verses, we must suppose the latter to be meant. Gum storax is the produce of a tree allied to the poplar, and known as Styrax officinalis , which grows abundantly in Syria and Palestine. It was frequently used as a perfume by the ancients (Herod. 3.107; Plin. H . N . Exodus 12:17 , §40). Onycha . The Hebrew word, shekheleth , seems to mean a "shell" of some kind or other. The Greek ὄνυξ , Lat. onycha, was applied to the operculum —the "nail" or "claw"—of certain shell-fish of the genus Strombidae, which were common in the lied Sea, and elsewhere. The particular strombus which furnishes the onycha of the ancients is thought to have been the Unguis odoratus or Blatta Byzantina . The opercula of these shell-fish have, when burnt, a strong odour, "something like castoreum." The onycha is, again coupled with galbanum and gum storax in Ecclesiates Exodus 24:15 . Galbanum. The Hebrew word khelb'nah , is so near the Greek χαλβάιη and the Latin galbanum that it has with good reason been assumed to designate the same substance. Galbanum is a gum well known both to ancients and moderns. It is admitted into the pharmacopeia. Several plants seem to produce it, as the Opoidia galbanifera , the Galbanum Persicum , and a plant which grows in Northern Persia, very like the Ferula erubeseens. When burnt, galbanum has a strong pungent odour, which is said to be disagreeable by itself, but to improve and preserve other odours (Plin. H . N . 12.54). Frankincense . On the wide use of frankincense, see the comment on Exodus 24:1 . It was the produce of a tree which anciently flourished in Arabia, but which appears to have degenerated, and now produces only an inferior quality. The best frankincense comes now from the high lands of India. It exudes from a tree called salai (the Boswellia setrata or thurifera of botanists). Some think that the frankincense exported largely from Arabia to the neighbouring nations was in part the produce of this tree imported by the Arab merchants from Hindustan.