Spices are costly, sweet-smelling things, and the Bible reaches for them on its most solemn days. In Exodus, the people are asked to bring spices for the anointing oil and for sweet incense used in the tabernacle. In the Gospels, the women who loved Jesus bought and prepared spices, rested on the sabbath, then came to the tomb early on the first day of the week. Nicodemus had already brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, and Jesus’ body was wound in linen with the spices, “as the manner of the Jews is to bury.” John 19 and Luke 24 tell that story.
6 verses
Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense,
And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.
And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.
Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.
And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.
Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
Aromatic substances, of which several are named in Ex. 30. They were used in the sacred anointing oil (Ex. 25:6; 35:8; 1 Chr. 9:29), and in embalming the dead (2 Chr. 16:14; Luke 23:56; 24:1; John 19:39, 40). Spices were stored by Hezekiah in his treasure-house (2 Kings 20:13; Isa. 39:2).