Exodus 30:23-24

30:23 “Take ¹  choice spices: ²  twelve and a half pounds ³  of free-flowing myrrh, ⁴  half that – about six and a quarter pounds – of sweet-smelling cinnamon, six and a quarter pounds of sweet-smelling cane, 30:24 and twelve and a half pounds of cassia, all weighed ⁵  according to the sanctuary shekel, and four quarts ⁶  of olive oil.

Psalms 45:8

45:8 All your garments are perfumed with ⁷  myrrh, aloes, and cassia.

From the luxurious palaces ⁸  comes the music of stringed instruments that makes you happy. ⁹ 

The Song of Songs 4:13-14

4:13 Your shoots are a royal garden ¹⁰  full of pomegranates

with choice fruits:

henna with nard,

4:14 nard and saffron;

calamus and cinnamon with every kind of spice,

myrrh and aloes with all the finest spices. ¹¹ 

[30:23]  ¹ tn The construction uses the imperative “take,” but before it is the independent pronoun to add emphasis to it. After the imperative is the ethical dative (lit. “to you”) to stress the task to Moses as a personal responsibility: “and you, take to yourself.”

[30:23]  ² tn Heb “spices head.” This must mean the chief spices, or perhaps the top spice, meaning fine spices or choice spices. See Song 4:14; Ezek 27:22.

[30:23]  ³ tn Or “500 shekels.” Verse 24 specifies that the sanctuary shekel was the unit for weighing the spices. The total of 1500 shekels for the four spices is estimated at between 77 and 100 pounds, or 17 to 22 kilograms, depending on how much a shekel weighed (C. Houtman, Exodus, 3:576).

[30:23]  ⁴ sn Myrrh is an aromatic substance that flows from the bark of certain trees in Arabia and Africa and then hardens. “The hardened globules of the gum appear also to have been ground into a powder that would have been easy to store and would have been poured from a container” (J. Durham, Exodus [WBC], 3:406).

[30:24]  ⁵ tn The words “all weighed” are added for clarity in English.

[30:24]  ⁶ tn Or “a hin.” A hin of oil is estimated at around one gallon (J. Durham, Exodus [WBC], 3:406).

[45:8]  ⁷ tn The words “perfumed with” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[45:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “the palaces of ivory.” The phrase “palaces of ivory” refers to palaces that had ivory panels and furniture decorated with ivory inlays. Such decoration with ivory was characteristic of a high level of luxury. See 1 Kgs 22:39 and Amos 3:15.

[45:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “from the palaces of ivory stringed instrument[s] make you happy.”

[4:13]  ¹⁰ sn The noun פַּרְדֵּס (pardes, “garden, parkland, forest”) is a foreign loanword that occurs only 3 times in the Hebrew Bible (Song 4:13; Eccl 2:5; Neh 2:8). The original Old Persian (Avestan) term pairidaeza designated the enclosed parks and pleasure-grounds which were the exclusive domain of the Persian kings and nobility in the Achaemenid period (HALOT 963 s.v. פַּרְדֵּס; LSJ 1308). The Babylonian term pardesu means “marvelous garden,” in reference to the enclosed parks of the kings (AHw 2:833.a and 3:1582.a). The term passed into Greek as παραδείσος (paradeisos, “enclosed park, pleasure-ground”), referring to the enclosed parks and gardens of the Persian kings (LSJ 1308). The Greek term was transliterated into English as “paradise.”

[4:14]  ¹¹ tn Or “with all the finest balsam trees.” The Hebrew term בֹּשֶׂם (bosem) can refer either to the balsam tree, the spice associated with it, or by extension any fragrant aroma used as perfuming oil or incense.