Rock rose (ladanum)
Plants and Trees in the Bible
The rock rose shrub grows to about 70 centimeters (28 inches) high and has hairy leaves and large pink flowers.
Pictures
In the Bible
The Hebrew and Greek words for it, and every verse where each is used
לֹט lot · 2 verses
What it stands for
People in the Near East collect the globs of sap that appear on the leaves of ladanum. They use small rakes with soft leather strips instead of metal teeth. On the island of Cyprus local farmers collect the gum by combing the beards of their goats that had foraged on the plants. Today it is used primarily in the manufacture of incense.
More about it
In Genesis the Hebrew word lot is mistakenly rendered “myrrh” by RSV and some other versions. It should be translated “ladanum,” which is a sticky juice that comes out on the hairy leaves of a low shrub called Cistus or Turkish Rock Rose Cistus laurifolius. It hardens and is sold in fragrant chunks that are ground and made into medicine for cough, catarrh, and dysentery. Hepper says it was used also as perfume.
In North Africa ladanum is called latai (compare Assyrian ladanu). The Aramaic translation of Hebrew lot is letem, similar to the post-biblical Hebrew name lotem.
Also in Ointment and balm (medicinal plants)
Sources
Plants and Trees in the Bible, Animals in the Bible and Human-made Things in the Bible © United Bible Societies, 2025 (adapted from Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible by Robert Koops, All Creatures Great and Small: Living Things in the Bible by Edward R. Hope, and The Works of Their Hands: Man-made Things in the Bible by Ray Pritz), CC BY-SA 4.0; adapted for eRhema