Hyssop

Hyssop is a small plant used for sprinkling. The law of Moses names it among the things taken for cleansing, alongside cedar wood and scarlet, and dipped in blood and running water, whether for a person healed of leprosy or for a house. David reached for the same picture in his prayer of sorrow: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” He is asking for forgiveness, not for a ritual. If you want to see the ceremony itself, Leviticus 14 describes it step by step, and Psalm 51 shows what it came to mean in prayer.

5 verses

Leviticus

Leviticus 14:4

Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop:

Leviticus 14:6

As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water:

Leviticus 14:51

And he shall take the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living bird, and dip them in the blood of the slain bird, and in the running water, and sprinkle the house seven times:

Leviticus 14:52

And he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird, and with the running water, and with the living bird, and with the cedar wood, and with the hyssop, and with the scarlet:

Psalms

Psalms 51:7

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

(Heb. ‘ezob; LXX. hyssopos), first mentioned in Ex. 12:22 in connection with the institution of the Passover. We find it afterwards mentioned in Lev. 14:4, 6, 52; Num. 19:6, 18; Heb. 9:19. It is spoken of as a plant “springing out of the wall” (1 Kings 4:33). Many conjectures have been formed as to what this plant really was. Some contend that it was a species of marjoram (origanum), six species of which are found in Palestine. Others with more probability think that it was the caper plant, the Capparis spinosa of Linnaeus. This plant grew in Egypt, in the desert of Sinai, and in Palestine. It was capable of producing a stem three or four feet in length (Matt. 27:48; Mark 15:36. Comp. John 19:29).

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From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

(Heb. ezob.) The ezob was used for sprinkling in some of the sacrifices and purifications of the Jews. In consequence of its detergent qualities, or from its being associated with the purificatory Services, the psalmist makes use of the expression, "Purge me with ezob ." (Psalms 51:7) It is described in (1 Kings 4:33) as growing on or near walls. (Besides being thus fit for sprinkling, having cleansing properties and growing on walls, the true hyssop should be a plant common to Egypt, Sinai and Palestine, and capable of producing a stick three or four feet long since on a stalk of hyssop the sponge of vinegar was held up to Christ on the cross. (John 19:29) it is impossible to precisely identify the plant because the name was given not to a particular plant but to a family of plants associated together by Hyssop, qualities easily noticed rather than by close botanical affinities. Different species of the family may have been used at different times. The hyssop of the Bible is probably one (or all) of three plants:--

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(1.) The common hyssop is "a shrub with low, bushy stalks 1 1/2 feet high, small pear shaped, close-setting opposite leaves all the stalks and branches terminated by erect whorled spikes of flowers of different colors in the varieties. It is a hardy plant, with an aromatic smell and a warm, pungent taste; a native of the south of Europe and the East."--ED.)

(2.) Bochart decides in favor of marjoram, or some plant like it, and to this conclusion, it must be admitted, all ancient tradition points. (This is the Origanum maru , the z’atar of the Arabs. The French consul at Sidon exhibited to Dr. Thomson ("The Land and the Book," i. 161) a specimen of this "having the fragrance of thyme, with a hot, pungent taste, and long slender stems." Dr. Post of Beirut, in the American edition of Smith’s large Dictionary, favors this view.--ED.)

(3.) But Dr.Royle, after a careful investigation of the subject, arrives at the conclusion that the hyssop is no other than the caperplant, or Capparis spinosa of Linnaeus. The Arabic name of this plant, asuf , by which it is sometimes though not commonly, described, bears considerable resemblance to the Hebrew. "It is a bright-green creeper, which climbs from the fissures of the rocks, is supposed to possess cleansing properties, and is capable of yielding a stick to which a sponge might be attached." --Stanky, "Sinai and Palestine," 23. --It produces a fruit the size of a walnut, called the mountain pepper.