Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 30:23

"Take thou also unto thee the chief spices: of flowing myrrh five hundred [shekels], and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty, and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty," — Exodus 30:23 (ASV)

Principal spices. —The East is productive of a great variety of spices; but of these, a few have always been regarded with special favor. Herodotus (iii. 107-112) mentions five “principal spices” as furnished by Arabia to other countries, of which at least two appear to be identical with those mentioned here.

Pure myrrh. —Hebrew, myrrh of freedom. The shrub which produces myrrh is the balsamodendron myrrha. The spice is obtained from it in two ways. That which is purest and best exudes from it naturally (Theophrastus, De Odoribus, § 29; Pliny, H. N., xii. 35), and is called here “myrrh of freedom,” or “freely flowing myrrh.” The other and inferior form is obtained from incisions made in the bark. Myrrh was widely used in ancient times.

The Egyptians employed it as a main element in their best method of embalming (Herodotus ii. 86) and also burned it in some of their sacrifices (ibid. 40). In Persia, it was highly esteemed as a fragrance (Athenaeus, Deipn. 12, p. 514A); the Greeks used it in unguents and as incense; Roman courtesans scented their hair with it (Horace, Od., iii. 14, 1. 22).

The later Jews applied it as an antiseptic to corpses (John 19:39). This is the first mention of myrrh (Hebrew, môr) in the Bible, the word translated “myrrh” in Genesis 37:25; Genesis 43:11 being lôt, which is properly, not myrrh, but ladanum.

Sweet cinnamon. —While myrrh was one of the most common spices in the ancient world, cinnamon was one of the rarest. It is the produce of the laurus cinnamomum, or cinnamomum zeylanicum, a tree related to the laurel, which now grows only in Ceylon, Borneo, Sumatra, China, Cochin China, and in India on the coast of Malabar. According to Herodotus (iii. 111) and Strabo (16, p. 535), it grew in ancient times in Arabia; but this is doubted, and the Arabians are believed to have imported it from India or Ceylon and passed it on to the Phoenicians, who conveyed it to Egypt and Greece.

This passage of Scripture is the first in which it is mentioned, and in the rest of the Old Testament it is mentioned only twice (Proverbs 7:16; Song of Solomon 4:14). The word used, which is kinnĕmôn, makes it reasonably certain that the true cinnamon is meant.

Sweet calamus. —There are several distinct kinds of aromatic reed in the East. One kind, according to Pliny (H. N., xii. 22), grew in Syria, near Mount Lebanon; others were found in India and Arabia. It is quite uncertain what particular species is intended, either here or in the other passages of Scripture where “sweet cane” is mentioned. (See Song of Solomon 4:14; Isaiah 43:24; Jeremiah 6:20; Ezekiel 27:17.)