Some consider bdellium, which is mentioned in the Scriptures (Genesis and Numbers), as a precious stone, and the Jewish rabbins, together with some modern commentators, translate it by pearl, but it is more than probable that the pearl was unknown in the time of Moses. Most probably, the Hebrew bedolach is the aromatic gum bdellium, which issues from a tree growing in Arabia, Media, and the Indies.
According to the poetic Orientals, every year, on the sixteenth day of the month of Nisan, the pearl-oysters rise to the sea and open their shells, in order to receive the rain which falls at that time, and the drops thus caught become pearls. On this belief the poet Sadi, in his “Bostau,” has the following fable: “A drop of water fell one day from a cloud into the sea. Ashamed and confused at finding itself in such an immensity of water, it exclaimed, ‘What am I in comparison of this vast ocean? My existence is less than nothing in this boundless abyss!’ While it thus discoursed of itself, a pearl-shell received it in its bosom, and fortune so favored it that it became a magnificent and precious pearl, worthy of adorning the diadem of kings. Thus was its humility the cause of its elevation, and by annihilating itself, it merited exaltation.”
Moore alludes to this pretty fiction in one of his sweetest melodies:
“And precious the tear as that rain from the sky
Which turns into pearls as it falls in the sea.”
Sir Walter Scott, in the “Bridal of Triermain,” says:
“See these pearls that long have slept;
These were tears by Naiads wept.”
Lilly, in “Gallathea:”
“Is any cozen’d of a teare