Principal spices. — The East is productive of a great variety of spices; but of these some few have always been regarded with especial favour. Herodotus (iii. 107-112) mentions five “principal spices” as furnished by Arabia to other countries, whereof two at least appear to be identical with those here spoken of.
Pure myrrh. — Heb., 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 (Theophrast. De Odoribus, § 29; Plin., H. N., xii. 35), and is here called “myrrh of freedom,” or “freely flowing myrrh.” The other and inferior form is obtained from incisions made in the bark. Myrrh was very largely used in ancient times. The Egyptians employed it as a main element in their best method of embalming (Herod. ii. 86), and also burnt it in some of their sacrifices (ib. 40). In Persia it was highly esteemed as an odour (Athen., Deipn. 12, p. 514A); the Greeks used it in unguents. And as incense; Roman courtesans scented their hair with it (Hor. 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 (Heb., 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 commonest of spices in the ancient world, cinnamon was one of the rarest. It is the produce of the laurus cinnamomum, or cinnamomum zeylanicum, a tree allied 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 anciently 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 Phœnicians, who conveyed it to Egypt and Greece. The present passage of Scripture is the first in which it is mentioned, and in the rest of the Old Testament it obtains notice only twice (Proverbs 7:16; Song of Solomon 4:14). The word used, which is kinnĕmôn, makes it tolerably certain that the true cinnamon is meant.
Sweet calamus. — There are several distinct kinds of aromatic reed in the East. One sort, 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 spoken of. (See Song of Solomon 4:14; Isaiah 43:24; Jeremiah 6:20; Ezekiel 27:17.)