Caravaggio, Saint Jerome Writing (c. 1605), Galleria Borghese. Public domain.
16 verses in the King James Version. Word study for “myrrh” →
And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.
And their father Israel said unto them, If it must be so now, do this; take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds:
Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels , and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels , and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels ,
Now when every maid’s turn was come to go in to king Ahasuerus, after that she had been twelve months, according to the manner of the women, (for so were the days of their purifications accomplished, to wit , six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with sweet odours, and with other things for the purifying of the women;)
All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.
I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
A bundle of myrrh is my wellbeloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.
Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?
Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.
Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:
I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.
I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock.
His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh.
And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not.
And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight .
