| Exodus 30:23
| Saying: Take spices, of principal and chosen myrrh five hundred sicles, and of cinnamon half so much; that is, two hundred and fifty sicles, of calamus in like manner two hundred and fifty,
| Spices. Perfumes were probably first invented in Arabia and Egypt. Ovid makes Bacchus the author of bloody sacrifices, and of incense offered to Jupiter. (Fast. 3.) --- Myrrh. Hebrew, "the head of the myrrh of liberty," or such as flowed freely and was most excellent, free from any mixture. Sudant sponte....stacten dictam. (Pliny, [Natural History?] 12:15.) (Calmet) --- Stacte takes its name from distilling. (Menochius) --- Sicles; this is not expressed in the Hebrew, as this measure is commonly meant. --- Cinnamon, a plant extremely rare. Matthcole assures us, that it is not now to be found in Arabia, no more than balm in Judea. --- Calamus. Hebrew adds the epithet sweet-smelling both to cinnamon and calamus, or cane, the latter of which grows in the Indies. (Dioscor. 1:17.) That which druggists sell, under this name, is not a proper ingredient for ointments.
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