Aids to Beautification - Biblical Blueprints

8 • Aids to Beautificationmeans of hiding beauty, but of accentuating beauty. If cosmeticswere not seen as a blessing from God, such a name would havebeen an insult to a godly woman rather than an honor.Likewise, Psalm 45 likens the glories of Christ to the best ofornaments, perfumes and cosmetics (cf. vs. 7-14). Again, unlessScripture valued these items, such an analogy would be useless.Song of Solomon glories not only in the natural beauty of God’screation, but also in the man-made aesthetic value of ornaments,clothing, perfumes, powders and cosmetics (read for example1:3,10-14; 3:6,11; 4:6,9-16; 5:5; 7:1,5). Song of Solomon doesnot exhaust the names of all these items for it speaks of “all thepowders of the merchant” (3:6) yet does not give names for all ofthem.ArchaeologyRecent archeological findings of that time have enabled us tonarrow down the types and costs of cosmetics and perfumesreferred to in the Bible. The following are a few examples 2 :• The phrase “ointment poured forth” (Song 1:3) is areference to a clarifying process in perfumery and it is nowthought that “on the basis of Ugaritic parallels, the termdescribes a kind of expensive and scarce cosmetic oil.” 3• Henna, a plant whose crushed leaves produced “a brightorange-red to yellow dye often used to color hair or fingernails,” 4 is mentioned in Song 1:14; 4:13 and in the NEBrendering of 7:11. This plant was valued for its cosmeticproperties.• Sapphron (Song 4:13) is a yellow dye used for makingcosmetics. We now know that the spikenard in Song 1:12and 4:13-14 comes from the root of Ginger grass and was2 Ibid. Douglas. See pp. 258-262,631-633 for more details on the archeologicalevidence.3 G. Lloyd Carr, The Song of Solomon, p. 74.4 Ibid., p. 85.