The Bible contains a wide and perplexing number of references to substances used for incense, anointing oil, perfume, and medicine. Many plants were in fact used for both incense and medicine. Sweet-smelling goods were an important element of Middle Eastern life in Bible times, as is shown by the fact that Ishmaelites in GEN 37:25 were carrying “gum, balm, and myrrh” down to Egypt, and Jacob sent the same goods with his sons as a gift to Pharaoh (GEN 43:11). Cassia and calamus are listed as trade goods from Syria in EZK 27:19, and MAT 2:11 tells us that scholar-kings brought frankincense and myrrh from the East to Jerusalem. Still others are listed in REV 18:13. In EXO 30:23–EXO 30:25 God instructs Moses to take the finest spices and make anointing oil to anoint the priests. Incense was integral to worship, both pagan and Jewish. Spices were also used in embalming, as we know from the story of Jesus’ burial.
Spices come from a variety of sources. Some are lumps of hardened sap (gum, resin) from shrubs; others are the dried leaves or flowers of plants; still others are from the wood or roots of trees. We divide the sixteen plants covered here into two groups: 1) incense and perfume, and 2) balm and ointment. A number of items—gall, henbane, poison hemlock, wormwood and mandrake—do not quite fit in. We will deal with those in Chapter 5.
Before considering the various species, let us take a moment to deal with some generic issues, first in English and then in the biblical languages. The English word “spice” refers primarily to substances that give flavor to food such as cinnamon or pepper. However, when we speak of the “spice trade” we usually include all sorts of other substances that may be used for medicine, perfume, and incense as well.
The English word “balm” can refer to “any of various aromatic resinous substances used for healing and soothing” (New Oxford American Dictionary). However, it is also used more specifically to refer to medicinal oil that comes from various tropical trees, and especially those of the genus Commiphora. One of these is the Balsam or Opobalsamum Commiphora gileadensis, from which we get the shortened name “balm.”
Related to the above is the fact that in many languages, a tree may have a different name from the substance it produces. For example, “mastic” comes from the lentisk tree and “ladanum” comes from the rock rose. “Stacte” comes from several kinds of trees, and “storax” comes from the Oriental sweetgum. Stacte and storax are often used interchangeably, as are storax and styrax by some writers, although we distinguish the two in this book.
As for generic terms in Hebrew, in EXO 30:23–EXO 30:25 God instructs Moses to take the finest “spices” (bosem) to make anointing oil. Zohary (page 198) describes the Hebrew word bosem as originally the name of a specific shrub (Commiphora gileadensis) but later it referred to all species of the genus Commiphora and their products. Does bosem refer to dry or liquid substances in this passage? Durham favors dry substances on the grounds that the measurement is in weight rather than volume. However, it could also have been a mixture consisting of the dry ingredients pulverized and mixed in with the liquid ones and the oil. Most English versions of this passage translate bosem as a cover term for the four specific substances that follow: mor deror (“liquid myrrh”), qinnemon besem (“sweet-smelling cinnamon”), qeneh bosem (“aromatic cane”), and qiddah (“cassia”). In translating this passage, a general word or phrase such as “sweet-smelling spices” is recommended for bosem. Bosem and its derivatives (basam, besem) occur at least thirty times in the Bible.
A related generic Hebrew word that may cause problems for translators is sam in EXO 30:34, where Moses is given the formula for incense. The English versions use various expressions for sam in this verse; for example, “sweet spices” (RSV, GNB), “fragrant spices” (NIV, REB), “aromatic substances” (NAB), “herbs” (NJPSV), and “costly spices” (CEV). This general word for spices introduces the four substances that made up the incense burned in the Tabernacle, namely nataf (“stacte”), shecheleth (“onycha”), chelbenah (“galbanum”), and levonah (“frankincense”), which will be dealt with below. The word sam occurs sixteen times in the Old Testament.
The Hebrew word tsori is translated “balm” in RSV, but Zohary takes it to refer to a specific plant, namely the Storax Liquidambar orientalis, and Moldenke takes it to be the Egyptian balsam (see Liquidambar (Oriental sweetgum, storax)).
The Hebrew word bedolach is problematic. It occurs in GEN 2:12 and NUM 11:7, where RSV, NCV, GW, and NJPSV transliterate it as “bdellium.” Botanists have generally held that this Hebrew word does not refer to a plant product. However, a surprising number of versions render it “resin” or “perfume” with one qualifying word or another (so GNB, CEV, NIV, NLT, REB). The Septuagint used the Greek word anthrax, which is a red stone (for example, carbuncle). Mft says “pearls.” Perhaps the safest course is to transliterate bedolach, with or without footnoting other possibilities.
Generic Greek words for spices include arōma (MRK 16:1; LUK 23:56; LUK 24:1; JHN 19:40; SIR 24:15) and amōmon (REV 18:13).