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J. W. McGarvey Short Essays in Biblical Criticism (1910) |
[Sept. 24, 1898.]
OPHIR AND ALMUG-TREES.
From an article by Prof. Fritz Hommel in the Expository Times for August, following one by Professor Cheyne in a previous number, it appears that these two scholars, wide apart in their conclusions on many critical subjects, agree that the almug-trees brought from Ophir by Solomon were, as formerly supposed by some commentators, the sandalwood. Professor Hommel has also settled it in his own mind, that the region called Ophir was eastern Arabia, though the name applied as well to the opposite coast of the Persian Gulf. The odorous wood, which was then a great curiosity, and is still a very rare product, may have grown in that region, or it may have been there only as an article of trade, produced elsewhere. It is a curious fact mentioned by a recent French Egyptologist, that pieces of sandalwood have been found in the abdominal cavities of mummies, doubtless placed there by the embalmers because of its fragrance.
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