Perfume

Substances used to make perfumes

By blending ingredients

Substances used as perfumes

Song of Solomon 4:13–14 See also Song of Solomon 1:12–14, Song of Solomon 3:6, Song of Solomon 5:13; Mark 14:3; John 12:3

Your branches are an orchard of pomegranates with the choicest of fruits, with henna and nard, with nard and saffron, with calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of frankincense tree, with myrrh and aloes, with all the finest spices.

Perfume ingredients as traded commodities

Genesis 37:25; Ezekiel 27:19; Revelation 18:13

The attractive fragrance of perfume

Its tempting allure

Proverbs 7:17 See also Isaiah 57:9; Ezekiel 23:40–41

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

Its pleasing fragrance

Proverbs 27:9; Song of Solomon 1:3, Song of Solomon 4:10

Fragrance used metaphorically

2 Corinthians 2:14–16 See also Ephesians 5:2; Philippians 4:18

But thanks be to God, who always leads us triumphantly as captives in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him. For we are to God the sweet aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an odor that brings death, to the other a fragrance that brings life. And who is qualified for such a task?

Examples of the use of perfume

As a cosmetic

Esther 2:12 See also Ruth 3:3

In the twelve months before her turn to go to King Xerxes, the harem regulation required each young woman to receive beauty treatments with oil of myrrh for six months, and then with perfumes and cosmetics for another six months.

To give fragrance to clothes

Psalm 45:8 See also Song of Solomon 4:11

All your garments are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia; from palaces of ivory the harps make you glad.

In burying the dead

Matthew 26:12 parallel Mark 14:8 See also 2 Chronicles 16:14; Mark 16:1 parallel Luke 23:56–24:1; John 12:7, John 19:39–40

By pouring this perfume on Me, she has prepared My body for burial.

Perfumers

Commissioned to make oil and incense for the sanctuary

Exodus 37:29 See also Exodus 30:25, Exodus 30:33 The manufacture of the sacred anointing oil by unauthorised persons was forbidden; Exodus 30:35; 1 Chronicles 9:30

He also made the sacred anointing oil and the pure, fragrant incense, the work of a perfumer.

Other references to perfumers

1 Samuel 8:13 perfumers in the service of the king; Nehemiah 3:8 Hananiah