Proverbs - 7:17



17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

Verse In-Depth

Explanation and meaning of Proverbs 7:17.

Differing Translations

Compare verses for better understanding.
I have perfumed my couch with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
I sprinkled my bed, myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
I have made my bed sweet with perfumes and spices.
I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, aloe, and cinnamon.

*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.


Historical Commentaries

Scholarly Analysis and Interpretation.

The love of perfumes is here, as in Isaiah 3:24, a sign of luxurious vice.
Cinnamon - The Hebrew word is identical with the English. The spice imported by the Phoenician traders from the further East, probably from Ceylon, has kept its name through all changes of language.

I have perfumed any bed with Myrrh - מר mor, "aloes," אהלים ahalim, and "cinnamon," קנמון kinnamon. We have taken our names from the original words; but probably the ahalim may not mean aloes, which is no perfume; but sandal wood, which is very much used in the East. She had used every means to excite the passions she wished to bring into action.

I have perfumed my bed,.... As she had made it entertaining to the senses of seeing and feeling, it being showy and gaudy, soft and easy; so to the sense of smelling; and all to provoke lust, and draw into her embraces; by censing it with incense, as Donesh in Jarchi; or by sprinkling (s) a liquor, made of the following spices, on the head, posts, and sides of the bed, to remove all ill scents, and make it more acceptable; so the Targum, Vulgate Latin, Septuagint, and all the Oriental versions, render it, "I sprinkled my bed": or, it may be, by suffumigation, which women are said to use with their garments and bed clothes (t). Even this the harlot did,
with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon; all odorous, and of a sweet smell: Horace (u) speaks of the anointed beds of such persons; and of the above spices ointments were made, with which the harlot's bed might be perfumed. Cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, are reckoned among the wares of Babylon, or the church of Rome, Revelation 18:13.
(s) Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 13. c. 1. (t) Clemens Alex. Paedagog. l. 2. c. 8. p. 177. (u) "Uctis cubilibus pellicum", Epod. Ode. 5. v. 69, 70.

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