the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Spikenard
Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary
or So called from Narred or Nard. We meet with this word not very frequently in Scripture. The spouse in the Canticles speaks of it. (Song of Song of Solomon 1:12) —And the woman who anointed the head of Jesus before his sufferings, is said to have done it with the ointment of spikenard. (Mark 14:3) Certainly in both it was figurative. The spikenard itself is a small uninteresting shrub, not likely to attract the attention of any which are fond of plants, for there is no beauty in it; yet the smell and fragrancy of it is said by some to be unequalled. So that in whatever point of view we esteem the figure or similitude, whether in allusion to Christ, or his church, or his gospel, the resemblance is striking. What so humble, low, despised, and overlooked as Jesus, though the plant of renown? (Ezekiel 34:29) "There was no beauty that we should desire him"—and yet what fragrancy, like the sweet incense of his blood and righteousness, to perfume the persons and offerings of his people? So his church; what more contemptible in the eyes of the great ones of the earth?—or his gospel, what more despised and set at nought? Yet how lovely, and how fragrant, in the view of Jesus! Hear what Jesus saith,"How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse; how much better is thy love than wine, and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!" (Song of Song of Solomon 4:10) Oh, for grace to echo back to such matchless grace—While the king sitteth at his table—while his grace and the influences of his Holy Spirit, are calling forth into lively exercise those blessed principles he himself hath planted in my heart—"my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof." Yea, Jesus himself is the spikenard of my soul; his person, his blood, and righteousness, are an everlasting fragrancy to come up before my God as a sweet-smelling savour.
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Hawker, Robert D.D. Entry for 'Spikenard'. Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance and Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/pmd/s/spikenard.html. London. 1828.
