308 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



MYRRH. 



THIS is also a vegetable production, of the gum or resin kind, is- 

 suing by incision, and sometimes spontaneously from the trunk and 

 larger branches of a tree growing in Egypt, Arabia, and Abyssinia. 

 Its taste is bitter and acrid, with a peculiar aromatic flavor, but 

 very nauseous ; its smell though strong, is not disagreeable. Its 

 Hebrew name mur, whence the modern name is derived, is evi- 

 dently from the verb mer, to be bitter, on account of its taste. 



Myrrh is believed to possess the power of resisting putrefaction, 

 and hence it was used by the Jews and Egyptians as one of the 

 principal ingredients for embalming the dead, John xix. 39. 



There has been conceived to be some discrepancy between Matt, 

 xxvii. 34 and Mark xv. 23. In ihe former passage it is stated that, 

 the Jews gave as drink to our Saviour, Vinegar mixed with gall,' 

 but in the latter it is stated to have been * wine mingled with myrrh.' 

 In order to remove this apparent variance, it has been supposed 

 that the two evangelists speak of two different potions, or that Mat- 

 thew, writing in Syriac, made use of the word mer, which signifies 

 any bitter ingredient, which his translator mistook for mur, myrrh. 

 We see no necessity, however, for resorting to either of these con- 

 jectures in order to reconcile the passages. Grotius has shown 

 upon unexceptionable evidence, that by the word oxos, which is 

 that used by Matthew, is not meant vinegar, but a very inferior 

 wine, used only by the meanest persons. It was so called from its 

 acidity, on account of which it was used well spiced with myrrh, 

 frankincense, and sometimes wormwood. This potion, then, Mark 

 calls * wine mixed with myrrh,' or ' myrrhed wine ;' and so might 

 it be termed improprie. It appears from Galen that this drink pro- 

 duces mental turbation. Hence, wine mixed with myrrh, or with 

 infusions of intoxicating herbs, was, through motives of humanity, 

 usually administered to those about to end urea painful death. Je- 

 sus, however, magnanimously refuses such mitigation of his suffer- 

 ings ; and therefore, after tasting it, rejects the cup. 



S T A C T E. 



THIS is usually understood to be the prime kind of myrrh* The 

 word in the original (Exod. xxx. 34), is neteph, which properly sig- 

 nifies a drop ; and hence Mr. Parkhurst thinks it is myrrh distilling, 

 dropping from the tree spontaneously without incision,- Scheu- 

 chzher is of opinion that balm or balsam is intended, 'which is pro- 

 perly a drop.' 



