References to aloes are frequent in the Scriptures. The first allusion
is found in Numbers, xxiv, 6, when in his poetic prophecy Balaam
describes Israel flourishing “as lign-aloes which the Lord hath
planted.” The other allusions occur in Psalm xlv, 8, Proverbs, vii, 17,
Canticles, iv, 14, and John, xix, 39. In the four last-named passages
aloes is associated with myrrh as a perfume. Of course it is understood
that the lign or lignum aloes, the perfumed wood of the aquilaria
agallocha, the eagle wood of India, is meant, but as that tree is
believed not to have been known except in the Malayan peninsula in the
days of Balaam, critics have remarked on the extraordinary circumstance
that it should be used as a simile by an orator in Palestine who would
naturally select objects for comparison familiar to his hearers. It has
been suggested, and with much force, that the original word in Balaam’s
prophecy may have been the Hebrew word for the palm or date tree. The
Septuagint translates the word “tents.”