Bdellium

bdellium

Hebrew: bedolach

Commiphora africana

Walker identifies the bdellium as Commiphora africana while other sources, Easton's Bible Dictionary for one, name the Borassus flabelliformis for its source of aromatic gum. This tree is much like balsam and is found in Arabia and India. Some scholars believe the word bdellium denotes pearls or another precious stone.

Walker also cites Parkinson, the 16th century herbalist who noted that the bark of the tree was cut and its gum oozed out forming white looking "pearls" that soon harden. They are waxy and transparent like pearls. Egyptian women carried little pouches filled with pieces of the bdellium for the scent.

Gen 2:12-13 (KJV) And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

Num 11:7 (KJV) And the manna was as coriander seed, and the colour thereof as the colour of bdellium.

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