Topic
Saffron
2 passages cited, from 3 classic reference works.
These works date from 1884–1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Song of Songs 4:14Easton · Smith · ISBE
Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:
- Song of Songs 4:13Easton
Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,
In the reference works
Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) · 2 references
Heb. karkom, Arab. zafran (i.e., “yellow”), mentioned only in Cant. 4:13, 14; the Crocus sativus. Many species of the crocus are found in Palestine. The pistils and stigmata, from the centre of its flowers, are pressed into “saffron cakes,” common in the East. “We found,” says Tristram, “saffron a very useful condiment in travelling cookery, a very small pinch of it giving not only a rich yellow colour but an agreable flavour to a dish of rice or to an insipid stew.”
Smith's Bible Dictionary (1884) · 1 references
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 1 references
saf'-run (karkom; krokos): Identical with the Arabic kurqum, the same as za`faran, "saffron." The source of the true saffron is Crocus sativus (Natural Order, Indaceae), a plant cultivated in Palestine; there are 8 wild varieties in all of which, as in the cultivated species, the orange-colored styles and stigmas yield the yellow dye, saffron. So 4:14 probably refers to the C. sativus. There is a kind of bastard saffron plant, the Carthamus tinctorius (Natural Order, Compositae), of which the orange-colored flowers yield a dye like saffron.
E. W. G. Masterman
Texts: Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897); Smith's Bible Dictionary (1884); International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.