Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 7:17

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

17. perfumed ] or sprinkled, R.V. marg.; , LXX.; aspersi, Vulg. No sensual gratification shall be wanting. For a similar perfuming of garments see Psa 45:8; Son 3:6; Son 4:14.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

The love of perfumes is here, as in Isa 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.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 17. I have perfumed any bed with Myrrh] mor, “aloes,” ahalim, and “cinnamon,” 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.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

17. beda place for sleeping.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

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, Re 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.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

17. My bed , ( mishkabhi;) meaning the place to sleep on, as the couch or sofa, of Pro 7:16, is the place to recline upon.

Myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon Our words are nearly the same as the Hebrew; , ( mor, ahalim, kinnamon.) The fluid extracts are generally supposed to be intended; but Zockler thinks the dry spices, in small bits, were strewed upon the bed. Comp. Psa 45:8; Son 3:6; Son 4:4. The love of perfumes is very great in the Orientals, but is here, as in Isa 3:24, associated with luxurious vice.

Aloes Lign Aloes, said to be very resinous and fragrant.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Pro 7:17. I have perfumed, &c. I have sprinkled or bedewed my bed with myrrh, cedar-oil, and juice of cinnamon.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Pro 7:17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

Ver. 17. With myrrh, aloes, &c. ] This might have minded the young man that he was going to his grave; for the bodies of the dead were so perfumed. Such a meditation would have much rebated his edge, cooled his courage. Jerusalem’s filthiness was “in her skirts”; and why? “She remembered not her latter end” Lam 1:9 As the strokings of a dead hand, they say, cureth a tympany; and as the ashes of a viper applied to the part that is stung draws the venom out of it, so the serious thought of death will prove death to fleshly lusts. I meet with a story a of one that gave a loose young man a ring with a death’s head, with this condition, that he should one hour daily, for seven days together, look and think upon it, which bred a strange alteration in his life.

a Mr Ward’s Sermons.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)