In Their Own Words

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Matthew 2:11 recounts that the wise men brought Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh—costly gifts. In antiquity, frankincense and myrrh were both used in incense and perfume. Alan Millard, Rankin Professor Emeritus of Hebrew and Ancient Languages at the University of Liverpool, explains the ancient origins of incense—both its sacred and profane uses.¹

Incense was an integral part of worship of the gods across the ancient Near East from the earliest periods …

We may assume that in prehistoric times people noticed that certain things gave off a pleasant smell when put on fire …

Observing that wood or sap or resin from particular trees were productive, they experimented with others, so that some were sought especially for the purpose …

What human beings enjoyed, they would expect their gods to enjoy also and, as usual, they lavished that on their deities. By the end of the third millennium B.C., documents from Babylonia record a wide variety of materials used for perfumes and incense, derived from various vegetable substances—resins, shavings, twigs—and incense burners occur in cuneiform texts from the Early Bronze Age into the Iron Age.

Lists of materials for making perfumes in cuneiform texts at Mari include cedar, cypress, juniper, myrtle—either the woods themselves or the resins—and various resins hard to identify. Although these lists and recipes for making perfumes are not specifically for incense, they show the variety of ingredients available from within the Fertile Crescent. The materials burnt as incense vary from the readily available to the exotic …

The instructions for preparing the sacred incense in Exodus 30:34–38 end with a prohibition on anyone making the same incense for their own use, prescribing the most severe punishment for anyone who might do so. Yet, as commonly observed, that implies there were other types of incense which Israelites could use in “secular” situations; Proverbs 27:9, “Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart,” may indicate that, and Psalm 45:9[8] refers to the wafting of the smoke of incense into clothes …

In both Babylonia and Egypt texts prescribe incense as a fumigant in medical processes, as a counter to the stench of putrefaction and as a counter to domestic smells, perfuming houses and clothes. The two last uses continue to the present day. Over 30 years ago, a British journalist reported how a Sa‘udi sheikh stood over an incense burner to allow the aromatic smoke to seep into his robes.

Matthew 2:11 recounts that the wise men brought Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh—costly gifts. In antiquity, frankincense and myrrh were both used in incense and perfume. Alan Millard, Rankin Professor Emeritus of Hebrew and Ancient Languages at the University of Liverpool, explains the ancient origins of incense—both its sacred and profane uses.1 Incense was an integral part of worship of the gods across the ancient Near East from the earliest periods … We may assume that in prehistoric times people noticed that certain things gave off a pleasant smell when put on fire … Observing that wood or sap […]