Exodus 30:34

Exodus 30:34 . The incense which was burned upon the golden altar was prepared of sweet spices likewise, though not so rare and rich as those which the anointing oil was compounded of. This was prepared once a year, (the Jews say,) a pound for each day of the year, and three pounds over for the day of atonement. When it was used it was to be beaten very small; thus it pleased the Lord to bruise the Redeemer, when he offered himself for a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour. Concerning both these preparations the same law is here given, that the like should not be made for any common use. Thus God would preserve in the people’s minds a reverence for his own institutions, and teach us not to profane or abuse any thing whereby God makes himself known.

THE COMPOSITION OF THE HOLY INCENSE. (34) Take unto thee sweet spices.—Rather, Take unto thee spices. The word translated “spices” has no epithet. Incense, as commonly used in the ancient world, was not a composition, but some single spice, most frequently frankincense. That, however, employed by the Hebrews was always a compound. According to Josephus (Bell. Jud., v. 5, § 5), the incense burnt in the later temple contained thirteen ingredients. Stacte is probably the gum storax, which is the produce of the styrax officinalis, a tree common in Syria and Palestine. It burns readily, and emits much smoke (Herod. iii. 107). Onycha is thought to be the “claw” or operculum of the unguis odoratus, or blatta Byzantina, a sort of shell-fish common in the Red Sea. This “claw” produces, when burnt, a strong odour. Galbanum is a gum well known to modern chemists. It may be procured from various plants, as the opoidia galbanifera, the galbanum Persicum, and others. When burnt, this gum has a strong pungent odour, which is said to be disagreeable in itself, but to bring out and prolong the scent of other spices (Plin. H. N., xii. 54). Frankincense was probably the main element of the “holy incense,” as it is of such incense as is burnt in modern times. It is a gum or resin obtained from incisions in the bark of the arbor thuris, or frankincense-tree, which grows abundantly in India, and in the islands of the Indian archipelago.

Anciently, the tree appears to have grown also in Arabia, whence the Egyptians (Records of the Past, vol. x., pp. 14-17), the Phœnicians, the Hebrews (Isaiah 60:6; Jeremiah 6:20), and the Greeks obtained it in large quantities. The odour is very peculiar, and to most persons very agreeable. In England it is best known as the scent given out by the pastilles which are burnt in sick rooms.

Stacte, and onycha, and galbanum : the Jews themselves are not agreed what these were, and it concerns not Christians much to know, the use of them being abolished. It is evident they were each of them sweet spices, and therefore this galbanum was not of the common kind, which gives a very ball scent. Of each shall there be a like weight , Heb. alone shall be with alone , i.e. each of these alone shall be with another alone, to wit, in equal quantity. Or it may note, that’ each of these was to be taken and beaten apart, and then mixed together. Or, it shall be alone alone , i.e. absolutely and certainly alone, the doubling of the word increasing the signification, and thus it doth not belong to all the ingredients, because the Hebrew verb is here of the singular number, but only to the frankincense; and the sense may be, that whereas the other things shall be tempered together, the frankincense should be alone, which may seem most agreeable both to the common use of frankincense, and to its differing nature from the other things mentioned, two of them at least being confessedly liquid things.

Exodus 37:29 . The incense, like the anointing oil, consisted of four aromatic ingredients. Stacte - supposed to be either the gum of the Storax tree (Styrax officinale) found in Syria and the neighboring countries, or the gum known as Benzoin, or Gum Benjamin, which is an important ingredient in the incense now used in churches and mosques, and is the produce of another storax tree (Styrax benzoin) that grows in Java and Sumatra. Onycha - , a perfume perhaps made from the cap of the strombus, or wing-shell, which abounds in the Red Sea. Galbanum - , a gum of a yellowish brown color, in the form of either grains or masses. It is imported from India, Persia, and Africa; but the plant from which it comes is not yet certainly known. Pure frankincense - This was the most important of the aromatic gums. Like myrrh, it was regarded by itself as a precious perfume Sol 3:6; Matthew 2:11, and it was used unmixed with other substances in some of the rites of the law. The tree from which it is obtained is not found in Arabia, and it was most likely imported from India by the Sabaeans, like Cinnamon, Cassia, and Calamus (see Exodus 30:23). The tree is now known as the Boswellia serrata, or B. thurifera, and grows abundantly in the highlands of India. The frankincense of commerce is a different substance, the resin of the spruce and of some other kinds of fir.

Verses 34-38. - THE HOLY INCENSE. It remained to give directions concerning the composition of the incense, which, according to verse 7, was to be burnt upon the altar of gold. That it was to be of one and one only peculiar kind had been already implied in the prohibition to burn "strange incense" (ver. 9). Moses is now told exactly how it was to be composed. As the oil was to contain four spices, so was the incense to be made of a like number - stacte, onycha, galbanum, and frankincense - of each the same quantity (ver. 34). The art of the apothecary was to be called in for making it up (ver. 35). A portion of it was to be "beaten very small," and placed in front of the ark of the covenant, probably on the golden altar outside the vail (ver. 36). A prohibition is added, similar to that given with respect to the holy oil: no one is to make any like it for private use, under pain of being "cut off from his people" (vers. 37, 38). Verse 34. - 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 32:27), 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 (ver. 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 . 12:17, §40). Onycha . The Hebrew word, she-kheleth , 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 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.

34 . sweet spices ] In the Heb. one word, sammim (plur.),—from the same root as the Arab. shamma , to ‘smell,’—not the one rendered ‘spices’ ( besâmim ) in v. 3, and, to judge from Exodus 25:6 (‘ besâmim for …, and for the incense of sammim ’), a narrower term than that: used exclusively (but only in P and Chr.) of the materials of which the incense was made, and mostly in the expression ‘incense of sweet spices’ (sometimes rendered ‘sweet incense’) v. 7, Exodus 25:6 , Leviticus 4:7 ; Leviticus 16:12 al. ; 2 Chronicles 2:4 ; 2 Chronicles 13:11 (both passages written by the Chronicler himself). It might be rendered for distinctness (cf. EB. iv. 4746), fragrant powders. stacte ] Heb. nâṭâph †, from nâṭaph , to drip . Some fragrant oil or resin is evidently meant; it is uncertain what. ‘Stacté’ is a transliteration of LXX. στακτη , Vulg. stacte , meaning also something that drips or trickles . Stacte was the Gk. and Lat. name of a very fragrant and costly kind of myrrh ( σμύρνα ), variously described by the ancients as an oil ‘dripping’ from crushed myrrh, either alone (Theophr. Odor. 29; on the text, see Schneider’s note: cf. Diosc. i. 77) or mixed with a little water (Diosc. i. 73), or as prepared from crushed myrrh dissolved in oil (Theophr. l.c. ), or as exuding spontaneously from the tree (Plin. H.N. xii. 15, § 68). Myrrh-oil would be a clearer rend.

Lucr. (ii. 847) mentions the ‘blandum stactaeque liquorem’; and Plautus ( Truc. ii. 5, 23) speaks of it as burnt on the altar to Lucina. This rend, of LXX. seems probable: still we do not know that it is right: it may be founded merely on the agreement of meaning between nâṭâph and ‘stacte.’ Ges. ( Thes. ) identified nâṭâph with the gum of the storax tree ( NHB. 395 f.), a beautiful perfumed shrub, abundant on the lower hills of Palestine, the gum of which (Diosc. i. 79) is still used in Syria as a perfume. The Rabbis identified it with ẓŏri (EVV. ‘balm’), and said that it was so called because it ‘dripped’ from the tree called ḳeṭâph , i.e. (Kimchi, Book of Roots , s.v.) the balsam -tree: hence, no doubt, RVm. opobalsamum (‘juice-balsam,’ as opposed to xylobalsamum , ‘wood-balsam,’ the scented twigs of the balsam-tree), an aromatic gum obtained (Diosc. i. 18; Plin. H.N. xii. 25, § 116, cf. § 118) from the Judaean balsam-tree by incisions in the bark. If however the môr of v. 23 (see the note there) was really the juice or gum of the balsam-tree, it is hardly likely to have been called here by a different name. onycha ] Heb. sheḥçleth †; LXX. ὄνυξ , Vulg. onyx , whence EVV. onycha (cf. Sir 24:15 ); i.e. unguis odoratus , the ‘operculum,’ or closing flap, called ὄνυξ from its resemblance to the nail , of certain molluscs, which, when burnt, emits a strong aromatic odour1[214].