The first notice of the scriptural plant occins in Exod. xii, 22, where a bunch of hyssop is directed to be dipped in blood and struck on the lintels and the two side-posts of the doors of the houses in which the Israelites re- sided. It is next mentioned in Lev. xiv, 4, 6, 52, in the ceremony for declaring lepers to be cleansed ; and again in Numb, xix, 6, 18, in preparing the water of separa- tion. To these passages the apostle alludes m Heb. ix, 19 : "For when Jloses had spoken every precept to all the people, according to the law, he took the blood of calves, and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people." From this text we find that the Greek name vaawirog was considered synonymous with the Hebrew ezob ; and from the preceding that the plant must have been leafy, and large enough to serve for the purposes of sprinkling, and that it must have been found in Lower Egjqot, as well as in the country towards IMount Sinai, and on- wards to Palestine. From the following passage we get some information respecting the habits and the supposed properties of the plant. Thus, in 1 Kings iv, 33, it is said, '• Solomon spoke of trees, from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon, even imto the hyssop that springeth out
Hyssopus Officinalis,
HYSSOP
452
HYSSOP
of the wall;" and in the penitential psalm of David (li, i 7), " Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean : wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." In this last pas- ] sage, it is true, the word is thought by some commenta- tors to be used in a figurative sense ; but still it is pos- sible that the plant may have possessed some general cleansing properties, and thus come to be employed in preference to other plants in the ceremonies of piurifica- tion. It ought, at aU events, to be fomid growing upon walls, and in Palestme. In the account of the cruciflx- ion of our Saviour, the evangelist John says (xix, 29), " Now there was set a vessel fuU of vinegar, and they filled a sponge ^vith vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth." In the parallel passages of Matthew (xxvii, 48) and INIark (xv, 36) it is stated that the sponge filled with vinegar was put upon a reed or stick. To reconcile these statements, some commenta- tors have supposed that both the sponge and the hyssop were tied to a stick, and that one evangelist mentions only the hyssop, because he considered it as the most important; while, for the same reason, the other two mention only the stick ; but the simplest mode of ex- plaining the apparent discrepancy is to consider the hyssop and the stick to be the same thing — in other words, that the sponge was affixed to a stick of hyssop. Of the different plants adduced by Celsius as ha-\dng more or less claims to be regarded as the hyssop of Scripture, some belong to the class of ferns, as Capillus Veneris, maiden-hair, and Ruta muraria, or wall-rue, because they will grow upon walls ; so also the Poly- trichum, or hair-moss, the Kloster hyssops, or pearlwort, and Saginaprocumhetis are suggested by others, because, from their growing on rocks or walls, they will answer to the passage in 1 Kings iv, 33, and from their small- ness contrast Avell with the cedar of Lebanon, and are a proof of the minute knowledge of Solomon. Some again contend for species of wormwood, as being, from their bitterness, most likely to have been added to the vine- gar in the sponge, that it might be more distasteful to our Saviour. The majority, however, have selected dif- ferent kinds of fragrant plants belonging to the natural family of Labiatte, several of which are found in drj' and Ijai-ren situations in Palestine, and also in some parts of the desert. (See Rauwolf, Trav. p. 59, 456 ; Hassel- quist, Trav.]). 554, 517 ; Burckhardt, Trav. ii, 913 ; Rob- inson, Researches, i, 162, 157.) Of these inay be men- tioned the rosemary, various species of lavender, of mint, of marjoram, of thyme, of savory, of thjTnbra, and oth- ers of the same tribe, resembling each other much in character as well as in properties ; but it does not aj)- pear that any of them grow on walls, or are possessed of cleansing properties ; and, with the exception of the rosemary, they are not capable of yielding a stick, nor are they found in all the required situations. If we look to the most recent authors, we find some other plants adduced, though the generality adhere to the common hyssop. Sprengel {Hist. Rei Herb, i, 14) seems to enter- tain no doubt that the Thymbi-a spicata found bj^ Has- selqiust on the ruins about Jerusalem is the hyssop of Solomon, though Hasselquist himself thought that the moss called Gymrwstonnim truncatum was the plant. Lady Calcott asks " whether the hyssop upon which St. John saj-s the sponge steeped in vinegar was put, to be held to the lips of Christ upon the cross, might not be the hyssop attached to its staff of cedar-wood, for the purposes of sprinkling the people, lest they should con- tract defilement on the eve of the Sabbath, which was a high-day, by being in the field of execution" {Scripture Herbal, p. 208). Ptosenmiiller, again, thinks that the Hebrew word ezoh does not denote our hyssop, but an aromatic plant resembling it, the wild marjoram, which the Germans call iJosten, or Woklr/eimtth, the Arabs Za- tar, and the Greeks Origanum. In the Pictorial Bible (i, 161), Mr.Kitto observes "that the hyssop of the sa- cred Scriptures has opened a wide field for conjecture, but in no instance has any plant been suggested that, at the same time, has a sufficient length of stem to answer