Citazione Commento su Cantico dei cantici 8:2

We have further received from tradition that “your love is more delightful than wine” [Cant. 1:2] and “I will let you drink of the spiced wine” [Cant. 8:2] also symbolize divine Wisdom. So too, we have discovered that the number seventy designates the seventy divine names emanated from Wisdom. For Wisdom’s numerical equivalent is seventy-three; the meaning of the remaining three is well-established.²¹ Obscure. He may be referring to a tripartite division of keter, the first sefirah, related to a notion of three primal flashes of light (tzaḥtzeḥot) that precede the sefirot. All that which we have mentioned is support and aid for this matter in addition to what has been received from tradition. Similarly, the terminology of “perfume” or “spice” as in “all choice perfumes” [Cant. 4:14], “to the bed of spices” [Cant. 6:2], “than any spice” [Cant. 4:10], “that its perfume might spread” [Cant. 4:16], and “to the mountain of spices” [Cant. 8:14] figure Wisdom. For it constitutes the beginning of being; from the point of Wisdom commences the propagation and expansion of scent.²² Reaḥ or scent is a metaphoric figure for the vivifying outflow of emanational energy, wafting forth from ḥokhmah through the sefirotic world.

רקח מרקחת A COMPOUND COMPOUNDED — רקח is a noun and its accent proves it, for it is on the first syllable, on the ר, so that it is a noun just as are רֶקַח in (Song 8:2) “I would cause thee to drink of the mixed wine (מיין הרקח)” and רֶגַע in (Exodus 33:5) “one moment (רֶגַע אחד)”, and it is not a participle like (Isaiah 51:15) “[I am the Lord] who stireth up (רוֹגַע) the sea”, or (Isaiah 42:5) “Who spreadeth forth (רֹקַע) the earth”, where the accent is on the last syllable. Any thing (ingredient) which is mixed with another so thoroughly that one becomes impregnated with the other as regards the smell or the taste is called a מרקחת.

V. 25. רקח. Es ist nicht ganz sicher, welche Art der Operation bei der Parfümbereitung unter רקח verstanden ist. Nahe liegt die Lautverwandtschaft von רקח und ריח. In ריח selbst liegt aber, wie bereits zu Bereschit 8, 21 bemerkt, ursprünglich der Begriff feinster Zerteilung, woher ja auch ריחים, die Mühle, und ist es daher zweifelhaft, ob man bei רקה an die mechanische Zerreibung der Gewürzstoffe, oder an die Durchdringung anderer Stoffe, hier des Öles, mit deren Aroma zu denken habe. Ausdrücke wie שמן רוקח (Kohel. 10, 1), יין הרֶקַח (Hohel. 2, 8) sprechen für die letztere Annahme. So auch: Job 41, 23: ים ישים כמרקחה, wo offenbar mehr an einen siedenden Destillierapparat, als an eine Pulverisierschale oder einen Mörser zu denken ist.