Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Nicodemus - See on John 3:1 (note), etc.
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 ̔ , a hundred, some critics have proposed to read ̔ - 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.
Other Adam Clarke entries containing John 19:39:
Matthew 27:59
Luke 24:1
John 3:21
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