Song of Solomon 4:14

Son 4:14 Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:

Ver. 14. Nard.] Called in Mar 14:3; Joh 12:3, "spikenard very costly," or rather, as some learned men will have it, nard of Opis, a town near Babylon, where grew the most precious spikenard, and whence it was transported to other places. {a} Of this plant, see Pliny, lib. xii. c. 11; as of cypress or camphire, lib. xii. c. 14; of saffron, lib. xii. c. 15; of calamus, lib. xii. c. 23; of cinnamon and myrrh, lib. xii. c. 23, 19. For pomegranates, {See Trapp on "Son 4:3"} for camphire, {See Trapp on "Son 1:14"} Saffron is in the Hebrew carcom: Shindler saith it should be read carcos with samech; and so it will exactly agree with κροκος, crocus, the one likely coming of the other. Our English comes of the Arabic zaphran, so called by the yellow colour. Calamus or sweet cane is a precious aromatical reed bought and brought out of far countries, as appeareth by Jer 6:20 Isa 43:24. Cinnamon was very rare in Galen’s time, and hard to be found, except in princes’ storehouses. {b} Pliny reports that a pound of cinnamon was worth a thousand denarii, - that is, 150 crowns of our money. As for those trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, &c., Brightman thinks they betoken tall and eminent Christians, as calamus and cinnamon, shrubs of two cubits high or thereabouts, do Christians of a middle stature; and nard and saffron, herbs that scarce lift up themselves above the ground, represent those of a lower rank and lesser degree of holiness; which yet have all of them their place in God’s garden, and their several sweetnesses; the Spirit of grace being magnus in magnis, nec parvus in minimis, as Augustine hath it, - Great in God’s greater children, and not little in the least. And though there be diversity of gifts, yet are they from one Spirit, as the diverse smells of pleasant fruits and chief spices are from the same influence, and the divers sounds in the organs from the same breath. The Spirit of grace are those two golden pipes, {Zec 4:12} through the which the two olive branches empty out of themselves the golden oils of all precious graces into the candlestick, the Church. Hence grace is called the "fruit of the Spirit"; {Gal 5:22} yea, "Spirit"; {Gal 4:17} and albeit, "as the man is, so is his strength," as they said to Gideon; and God hath his children of all sizes, - babes, young men, old men; {1Jn 2:13} yet Philadelphia, with her "little strength," may "keep Christ’s word, and not deny his name" (while those churches that had more strength are not so commended), and in "that little strength I have set open a door for thee," even the door of heaven, wide enough so that none could shut it. {Rev 3:8} Why, then, should any "despise the day of small things?" God, who "hath begun a good work, his hands shall finish it: and he that hath laid the foundation, shall in due time bring forth the topstone thereof with shouting, crying, Grace, grace unto it." {Zec 4:7-10} An infant of days shall proceed from degree to degree, till he be like the Ancient of days; and "those that be planted in the house of the Lord, shall once flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age: they shall be fat and flourishing." {Psa 92:13-14} The seeds of the cypress tree are so very small, that they can scarce be seen with eyes, et tamen in iis tanta est arbor, tamque procera, {c} and yet in some one of them is potentially so large and so tall a tree. Despair not therefore of further measures, but aspire still to perfection. {Php 3:12-13 Heb 5:14} The blessing on man in the first creation was, "increase and multiply," in the second, "grow in grace." {Isa 61:3; Isa 61:11} And remember that growth is not always to be measured by joy, and other accessory graces. These sweet blooms may fall off when fruit comes on, &c.

{a} πιστικης, melius vero ποιστικης ab oppido prope Babylonem Opis dicto. - Scultet, ex Hartungi Criticis.

{b} Gal., lib. i. Antidot.

{c} Plin., lib. xi. cap. 2.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(14) Spikenard.—See Note, Son_1:12. Saffron; Heb. carchom; only here. The Arabic name is still kûrkûm = Crocus sativus, a well-known bulb of the order Iridaceœ. The pistil and stigma. dried, form the saffron.

Calamus.—Heb. kâneh. (Comp. kâneh bosem = sweet calamus, Exo_30:23; k. hottôv—sweet cane, Jer_6:20.) There are many sweet grasses in India and the East. Andropogon calamus aromaticus has been identified (Royle) with the “reed of fragrance” of Exodus, and Jeremiah’s “good reed from a far country,” but the identification is not to be implicitly accepted. (See Bible Educator, Vol. I., p. 245.)

Cinnamon.—Heb. kinnamôn probably included Cinnamomum Zeylanicum (cinnamon) and Cinnamomum cassia (Cassia lignea). (See Bible Educator, Vol. I., p. 245.) The rind of the plant is the “cinnamon” in use. The plant belongs to the family of laurels, and grows in Ceylon, on the Malabar coast, and in East Indian Islands. It attains a height of from twenty to thirty feet, having numerous boughs, bearing leaves of a scarlet colour when young, but changing to a bright green, and white blossoms.

Aloes.—See Note, Num_24:6.

With all the chief spices.—“That in thy sweet all sweets encloses” (H. Constable).

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

14. saffron] Heb. karkôm occurs in the O.T. only here, but its meaning is clear from the Arabic kurkum = the Crocus sativus. There are many species of crocus in Palestine, and from most of them saffron is obtained. The women and children gather the pistil and stigma from the centre of each flower. These are dried in the sun and then pounded. It is used for a condiment. The name ‘saffron’ is merely the Arabic zafran = ‘yellow.’ The best saffron is of an orange-red colour. See Tristram, Nat. Hist. p. 480.

calamus] Heb. qâneh, i.e. ‘aromatic reed.’ According to Tristram, p. 438, who makes a careful collation of all the passages in which the word occurs, this is not a sweet cane like the sugar-cane, but an aromatic cane imported from the East, either from Arabia Felix, or more probably from India. It is the same as the qeneh bôsem, the ‘sweet calamus’ of Exo_30:23.

cinnamon] Heb. qinnâmôn, our cinnamon, a plant unknown in Syria. It is a native of Ceylon, and belongs to the family of the laurels. The tree attains to the height of 30 feet and has a white blossom. The spice is simply the inner rind separated from the outer bark and dried in the sun. See Tristram, Nat. Hist. p. 346.

trees of frankincense] For frankincense see ch. Son_3:6.

aloes] A stately tree (Num_24:6) from which some aromatic substance was derived. It has generally been identified, according to Tristram (p. 333), with the Aquilaria agallocha, the eagle wood, found in Cochin China and Silhet in Northern India. This tree attains a height of 120 feet, and from it a costly perfume is extracted, which yields a fragrant odour when burned. The Enc. Brit., sub voce, supposes that it more probably is the Aquilaria malaccensis, found in the Malayan Peninsula, from which it would more easily find its way into Palestine in Biblical times than the other from North India. Cp. article ‘Aloes,’ Encycl. Bibl. vol. 1. p. 121.

the chief spices] i.e. the chief spice-bearing trees. It is notable that all the trees of this ‘paradise’ are rare exotics, probably to hint that the bride’s charms are as rare and as much to be admired as such plants are. But the rare and foreign character of all the objects to which the bride is compared is entirely incompatible with the supposition that our book is a collection of popular songs (Volkslieder). In them the comparisons are always with homely well-known objects.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Cinnamon. Very rare, Exodus xxx. 23. --- Libanus, or "incense." (Hebrew)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Trees of frankincense; such trees as produce frankincense. Or, as others, both ancient and modern, render it, trees of Lebanon; such sweet-smelling trees and plants as grew in Lebanon, of which See Poole "Son 4:11".

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

14. Spikenard, etc. — A list is given of the choicest shrubs and flowers which the land could produce. Some, as cinnamon, which is a native of Ceylon and Southern Asia, must have been cultivated in Palestine as an exotic. Or it may have been known only as an article of commerce, and thus assigned a place in a garden furnished according to a lively ideal.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

All trees - Such trees as produce frankincense.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.