John 19:39

Verse 39. Nicodemus] John 3:1, c.

Myrrh and aloes] Which drugs were used to preserve bodies from putrefaction. Calmet says that the aloes mentioned here is a liquor which runs from an aromatic tree, and is widely different from that called aloes among us.

Some have objected that a hundred pounds' weight of myrrh and aloes was enough to embalm two hundred dead bodies and instead of εκατον, a hundred, some critics have proposed to read εκατερων - a mixture of myrrh and aloes, of about a pound EACH. See Bowyer's Conjectures. But it may be observed that great quantities of spices were used for embalming dead bodies, when they intended to show peculiar marks of respect to the deceased. A great quantity was used at the funeral of Aristobulus; and it is said that five hundred servants bearing aromatics attended the funeral of Herod: see Josephus, Ant. b. xv. c. 3, s. 4; and b. xvii. c. 8, s. 3: and fourscore pounds of spices were used at the funeral of R. Gamaliel the elder. See Wetstein in loc.