Exodus 30:23
Saying: Take spices, of principal and chosen myrrh five hundred sicles, and of cinnamon half so much, that is, two hundred and fifty sicles, of calamus in like manner two hundred and fifty.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- dicens : Sume tibi aromata, primæ myrrhæ et electæ quingentos siclos, et cinnamomi medium, id est, ducentos quinquaginta siclos, calami similiter ducentos quinquaginta,
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Καὶ σὺ λάβε ἡδύσματα, τὸ ἄνθος σμύρνης ἐκλεκτῆς πεντακοσίους σίκλους, καὶ κινναμώμου εὐώδους τὸ ἥμισυ τούτου σν᾽, καὶ καλάμου εὐώδους διακοσίους πεντήκοντα,
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְאַתָּ֣ה קַח לְךָ֮ בְּשָׂמִ֣ים רֹאשׁ֒ מָר דְּרוֹר֙ חֲמֵ֣שׁ מֵא֔וֹת וְקִנְּמָן בֶּ֥שֶׂם מַחֲצִית֖וֹ חֲמִשִּׁ֣ים וּמָאתָ֑יִם וּקְנֵה בֹ֖שֶׂם חֲמִשִּׁ֥ים וּמָאתָֽיִם
Haydock's commentary
Spices. Perfumes were probably first invented in Arabia and Egypt. Ovid makes Bacchus the author of bloody sacrifices, and of incense offered to Jupiter. (Fast. 3.)
Myrrh. Hebrew, "the head of the myrrh of liberty," or such as flowed freely and was most excellent, free from any mixture. Sudant sponte....stacten dictam. (Pliny, [Natural History?] xii. 15.) (Calmet)
Stacte takes its name from distilling. (Menochius)
Sicles; this is not expressed in the Hebrew, as this measure is commonly meant.
Cinnamon, a plant extremely rare. Matthcole assures us, that it is not now to be found in Arabia, no more than balm in Judea.
Calamus. Hebrew adds the epithet sweet-smelling both to cinnamon and calamus, or cane, the latter of which grows in the Indies. (Dioscor. i. 17.) That which druggists sell, under this name, is not a proper ingredient for ointments.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.