Greek word · G4669

σμυρνίζω

smyrnizō

to mix with myrrh

σμυρνίζω means 'to treat, flavour or mix with σμύρνα (myrrh)'. Myrrh is a gum resin from Commiphora trees of Arabia and the Horn of Africa. It was expensive and used in perfume, incense, medicine, anointing oils and the preparing of bodies for burial.

Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·

What it means

σμυρνίζω

(σιύρνα),

1. intrans., to be like myrrh (Diosc., i, 79).

2. Trans., to mingle or drug with myrrh: pass., Mark 15:23.†

(AS)

From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Mark 15:23

Range of meaning

σμυρνίζω means 'to treat, flavour or mix with σμύρνα (myrrh)'. Myrrh is a gum resin from Commiphora trees of Arabia and the Horn of Africa. It was expensive and used in perfume, incense, medicine, anointing oils and the preparing of bodies for burial. The perfect participle describes wine that has already been prepared with it.

Against the English

'Mixed with myrrh' (BSB, WEB, ESV, NIV) and 'mingled with myrrh' (KJV) are accurate. NLT's 'drugged with myrrh' builds one interpretation into the text: it treats the myrrh as a narcotic. Mark does not say that.

How it drifted

A modern reader usually knows myrrh only from the Christmas story or from burial, or hears 'myrrh-wine' as a known painkiller. In the ancient world myrrh-wine was first of all a luxury drink. Its drugging effect is possible but not well attested.

Used elsewhere in the period

Pliny the Elder (Natural History 14.92) says the finest wines of earlier times were those 'spiced with the scent of myrrh'. Dioscorides (Materia Medica 1.64) lists myrrh among medicines and credits it with warming and soporific (sleep-inducing) qualities. That is the main ancient support for a sedative purpose. A rabbinic tradition (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a) says that a man led out to execution was given wine with a grain of frankincense 'to benumb his senses', based on Proverbs 31:6, and that respected women of Jerusalem provided it. Note that the spice there is frankincense, not myrrh. The tradition is also written down centuries later. The verb σμυρνίζω does not occur in the Septuagint.

Where it appears

Mark · 1

  1. Mark 15:23 ἐσμυρνισμένον mixed with myrrh

    There they offered Him wine mixed with myrrh, but He did not take it.

    Here: A perfect passive participle, 'having been treated with myrrh'. It describes the wine's state: it had already been prepared with myrrh. The word appears only here in the New Testament. Myrrh is an expensive aromatic resin, and adding it made a spiced or perfumed wine.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.