ALOES (ahâlim, Pro_7:17, Num_24:6 [lign aloes]; ahâloth, Psa_45:8, Son_4:14; also alǒç, Joh_19:39).This is the modern eagle-wood (a name derived from the Skr. aguru); it has nothing to do with the familiar bitter aloes of medicine, or with the American aloe, now much cultivated in gardens in Palestine, but a recent importation. This eagle-wood is obtained from plants of the order Aquilariaceæ, but the fragrant parts are those which are diseased; the odoriferous qualities are due to the infiltration with resin, and the best kinds sink when placed in water. The development of this change in the wood is hastened by burying it in the ground. A trade in this wood has gone on from early times; it comes from India, the Malay Peninsula, etc., and has long been a favourite with the Arabs, who call it el ud.
The use of the word (translated lign aloes, Num_24:6) by Balaam creates a difficulty. Either he must have referred to the tree from mere hearsay, or some other plant of the same name may at that time have grown in the Jordan valley, or, as seems most probable, the Heb. word has been wrongly transcribed. Both palms and terebinths have been suggested as suitable alternatives.
E. W. G. Masterman.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
Aloes. (Hebrew , Ahalim, Ahaloth). The name of a costly and sweet-smelling wood which is mentioned in Num_24:6; Psa_45:8; Pro_7:17; Son_4:14; Joh_19:39. It is usually identified with the Aquilaria agollochum, an aromatic wood much valued in India. This tree sometimes grows to the height of 120 feet, being 12 feet in girth.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
Aloes, the two words which are so rendered occur in several passages of the Old Testament, as in Psa_45:8; Pro_7:17; Son_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 Joh_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.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Psa_45:8 (c) This perfume represents the worship and praise, the adoration and thanksgiving that emanates from a heart that has been touched by the love of GOD.
It probably was one of the constituents of the perfume which was placed in the alabaster boxes mentioned in the New Testament.
- It is that which makes the fellowship of the Lord so fragrant and sweet to both His heart and ours.
- It may have been a part of those spices brought by the wise men to make His baby garments sweet.
- It probably was a part of the perfume brought by the woman in Luke 7, who made His traveling garments fragrant.
- It may have been a part of the spices brought by Mary in John 12, when she made fragrant those garments which JESUS was to wear during His last week on earth before Calvary.
- No doubt it was a part of the perfume brought by the unnamed woman in Mark 14, when she anointed His head two days before the Passover and made those trial garments fragrant.
- It may have been in the mixture that Nicodemus brought to make His grave clothes fragrant.
- It probably is considered as part of those perfumes which we living saints may send up to Heaven as our praises to fill the golden vials in the hands of the four and twenty elders. (Rev_5:8)
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.