Aloes
Aloes [1]
Aloes, the two words which are so rendered occur in several passages of the Old Testament, as in Psalms 45:8; Proverbs 7:17; Song of Solomon 4:14, and evidently mean some odoriferous substance which ought not to be confounded with the bitter and nauseous aloes famed only as a medicine, and which is usually disagreeable in odor and nauseous in taste, and could never have been employed as a perfume. The words referred to seem to indicate a kind of fragrant wood called Agallochum, which was brought from India and Arabia. There can be little or no doubt that the same odoriferous wood is intended in John 19:39, where we are told that when the body of our Savior was taken down from the cross, Nicodemus brought myrrh and aloes for the purpose of winding up the body in linen clothes with these spices.
