Myrrh.
It has been stated that the stacte ordered in the formula for incense was probably a very fine kind of liquid myrrh (the flowing myrrh of the holy oil formula). But myrrh (Heb. mur) is several times directly mentioned. Esther purified herself for six months with oil of myrrh (ii, 12); myrrh, aloes, and cassia are grouped as sweet odours in Ps. xlv, 8; with cinnamon in the place of cassia in Prov., vii, 17, and in numerous verses of the Song of Songs. In the New Testament it is named among the gifts which the wise men brought to the Saviour. Nicodemus brought myrrh and aloes to embalm the body of Jesus. On the cross St. Matthew (xxvii, 34) names vinegar mixed with gall as a drink given to Christ by the soldiers; in an apparently parallel passage in St. Mark’s Gospel (xv, 23) wine with myrrh is the mixture described. It is possible that Matthew writing in Syriac may have used the word mur (myrrh) and that his translator into Greek read from his manuscript Mar (gall). In Genesis, xxxvii, 25, and xliii, 11, the word translated myrrh is Loth (not mur) in the Hebrew. The best opinion is that this meant ladanum, the gum from the cistus labdaniferus which Dioscorides states was scraped from the beards of goats which had fed on the leaves of this shrub and had taken up some of the exuding gum.
Wormwood.
The Israelites had great objection to bitter flavours, and the coupling of “gall and wormwood” expresses something extremely unpleasant. The Hebrew word is La’anah, and the Septuagint twice renders this hemlock (Hos., x, 4 and Amos, vi, 12) but in other places wormwood. The star which fell from heaven and made the rivers bitter (Rev., viii, 11) was called by the Greek name for wormwood, Apsinthos.
Hyssop.
Hyssop is a word which has occasioned much difference of opinion among interpreters. The Hebrew word hezob was translated in the Septuagint by hyssopos, and this word is used twice in the New Testament. From references used in the Pentateuch it is clear that “a bunch of hyssop” was employed in the Israelitish ritual for sprinkling purposes (Exodus, xii, 22; Leviticus, xiv, 4 and 6; Numbers, xix, 6 and 18). From 1 Kings, iv, 33, it appears that it was a shrub that grew in crevices of walls; from Psalm li, 7, “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean,” it has been assumed to have possessed purgative properties, though it is more likely that the allusion was to the ceremonial purification of the law; according to St. John its stem was used to hand up the sponge of vinegar to the Saviour on the cross, but St. Matthew and St. Mark use the term calamus, or a reed. It may have been that a bunch of hyssop was fixed to the reed and the sponge of vinegar placed on the hyssop. Some learned commentators have conjectured that the word hyssopos in St. John’s account was originally hysso, a well-known Greek word for the Roman pilum or javelin. The other allusion in the New Testament occurs in Hebrews, ix, 19, and is merely a quotation from the Pentateuch.
It has been found impossible to apply the descriptions quoted to any one plant. That which we now call hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis) does not grow in Palestine. It is generally agreed that it was not that shrub. The caper has been suggested and strongly supported, but the best modern opinion is that the word was applied generically to several kinds of origanum which were common in Syria.
Juniper.
The Hebrew word rothem, translated juniper in our Authorised Version, has given much trouble to translators. The Septuagint merely converted the Hebrew word into a Greek one, and the Vulgate followed the Septuagint. The allusions to the tree are in 1 Kings, xix, 4 and 5, where Elijah slept under a juniper tree; Job, xxx, 4, speaks of certain men so poor that they cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat; and Psalm cxx, 4, “Sharp arrows of the mighty with coals of juniper.” The tree alluded to was almost certainly the Broom, and it is so rendered in the Revised Version either in the text or in the margin in all the instances. The Arabic name for the broom is ratam, evidently a descendant of rothem. The Genista roetam is said to be the largest and most conspicuous shrub in the deserts of Palestine, and would be readily chosen for its shade by a weary traveller. The mallows in the Book of Job are translated salt wort in the Revised Version. Renan gives “They gather their salads from the bushes.” Salads were regarded as indispensable by the poorest Jews. The coals of juniper (or broom) are supposed to have reference to the lasting fire which this wood furnishes, but other translations suggest as the proper reading of the verse “The arrows of a warrior are the tongues of the people of the tents of Misram.”