(Note: Myrrh has its name מר from the bitterness of its taste, and קנם appears to be a secondary formation from קנה, whence קנה, reed; cf. the names of the cinnamon, cannella, Fr. cannelle. Cinnamum (κίνναμον) is only a shorter form for cinnamomum. Pliny, Hist. Nat. xii. 19 (42), uses both forms indiscriminately.)

that had come to the Greeks through the Phoenicians), the cinnamon, i.e., the inner rind of the Laurus cinnamomum. The myrrh is native to Arabia; the alo, as its name denotes, is Indian; the cinnamon in like manner came through Indian travellers from the east coast of Africa and Ceylon (Taprobane). All these three spices are drugs, i.e., are dry apothecaries' wares; but we are not on that account to conclude that she perfumed (Hitzig) her bed with spices, viz., burnt in a censer, an operation which, according to Sol 3:6, would rather be designated קטּרתּי. The verb נוּף (only here as Kal) signifies to lift oneself up (vid., under Psalm 48:13), and transitively to raise and swing hither and thither ( equals חניף); here with a double accusative, to besprinkle anything out of a vessel moved hither and thither. According to this sense, we must think of the three aromas as essences in the state of solution; cf. Exodus 30:22-33; Esther 2:12. Hitzig's question, "Who would sprinkle bed-sheets with perfumed and thus impure water?" betrays little knowledge of the means by which even at the present day clean linen is made fragrant. The expression רוה דּודים sounds like שׁכר דודים, Sol 5:1, although there דודים is probably the voc., and not, as here, the accus.; רוה is the Kal of רוּה, Proverbs 5:19, and signifies to drink something copiously in full draughts. The verbal form עלס for עלץ is found besides only in Job 20:18; Job 39:13; the Hithpa. signifies to enjoy oneself greatly, perhaps (since the Hithpa. is sometimes used reciprocally, vid., under Genesis 2:25) with the idea of reciprocity (Targ. חר לצד). We read boohabim with Chateph-Kametz after Ben-Asher (vid., Kimchi's Lex.); the punctuation בּאהבים is that of Ben-Naphtali.