{"id":83412,"date":"2020-11-14T23:21:29","date_gmt":"2020-11-14T21:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=83412"},"modified":"2020-11-14T23:21:29","modified_gmt":"2020-11-14T21:21:29","slug":"myrrh-aloes-and-cassia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/myrrh-aloes-and-cassia\/","title":{"rendered":"Myrrh, Aloes And Cassia"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"83412","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":64450,"related_cahpter":"612","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Those royals sure smelled nice\r\n\r\n","content":"

Psalm 45 was composed in honor of the upcoming wedding of the king to his princess bride. It is unusual in Psalms, which generally reserves its praise for God, for the psalmist to shower praise on a human king. One of the verses uses particularly aromatic language: \u201cAll your robes [are fragrant] with myrrh and aloes and cassia; from ivoried palaces lutes entertain you\u201d (45:9).<\/span><\/p>\n

Three sources of fragrance are mentioned.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first is myrrh, a resin produced from trees of the Burseracea family. The Hebrew word is <\/span>mor<\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0and this was borrowed into Greek as <\/span>myrrah<\/span><\/em>, and from there to English.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second Hebrew word in the verse is <\/span>ahalot<\/span><\/em>. Although it looks like it might be related to the Hebrew word for \u201ctent\u201d \u2013 <\/span>ohel<\/span><\/em>\u00ad <\/span><\/i>\u2013 there isn\u2019t actually a connection.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahalot<\/span><\/em>\u00a0shows up with myrrh also in Song of Songs 4:14 and Proverbs 7:17, and since myrrh and cassia are both fragrant trees, <\/span>ahal<\/span><\/em>\u00a0is also understood to be a similar kind of tree \u2013 the aloe.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, the English word aloe (via Latin and Greek) likely comes from the Hebrew <\/span>ahal<\/span><\/em>. But the Hebrew itself was probably borrowed from the Indian word <\/span>agaruh<\/span><\/em>. This makes sense, because the word, like the tree itself \u2013 the aloewood or agarwood tree \u2013 originated in India.<\/span><\/p>\n

But when we use \u201caloe\u201d today, we\u2019re not referring to the aloewood tree, but to the succulent plant known as aloe vera (\u201ctrue aloe\u201d). The juice from its leaves is used for medicinal purposes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since aloe in Greek (and then later in English) could refer both to the tree and to the succulent, and since both uses came from Semitic roots, there is some confusion as to how precisely the borrowing took place.<\/span><\/p>\n

The last fragrance mentioned in the verse made its way from Hebrew to English as well. The Hebrew is <\/span>ketziya<\/span><\/em>, and via Greek and Latin, became the English \u201ccassia.\u201d It comes from the root <\/span>k-tz-a<\/span><\/em>, \u201cto peel,\u201d because the bark was peeled off the tree to make the cinnamon-like spice.<\/span><\/p>\n

In our psalm, the king is praised for having access to exotic fragrances. So it shouldn\u2019t surprise us that the European peoples found them exotic as well, and chose to borrow the words into their own languages.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":83413,"id":83413,"title":"ps45-myrrh aloes cassia","filename":"ps45-myrrh-aloes-cassia.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/ps45-myrrh-aloes-cassia.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/myrrh-aloes-and-cassia\/ps45-myrrh-aloes-cassia\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"ps45-myrrh-aloes-cassia","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":83412,"date":"2020-11-14 21:19:53","modified":"2020-11-14 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