Onycha

This article uses bare URLs, which are uninformative and vulnerable to link rot. Please consider converting them to full citations to ensure the article remains verifiable and maintains a consistent citation style. Several templates and tools are available to assist in formatting, such as reFill (documentation) and Citation bot (documentation). (August 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Onycha (/ˈɒnɪkə/, Ancient Greek: ὄνυξ, romanized: ónux), along with equal parts of stacte, galbanum, and frankincense, was one of the components of the consecrated Ketoret (incense) which appears in the Torah book of Exodus (Ex.30:34-36) and was used in Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. This formula was to be incorporated as an incense, and was not to be duplicated for non-sacred use.^[1] What the onycha of antiquity actually was cannot be determined with certainty. The original Hebrew word used for this component of the ketoret was שחלת, shecheleth, which means "to roar; as a lion (from his characteristic roar)" or “peeling off by concussion of sound."^[2] Shecheleth is related to the Syriac shehelta which is translated as “a tear, distillation, or exudation.”^[3] In Aramaic, the root SHCHL signifies “retrieve.”^[3] When the Torah was translated into Greek (the Septuagint version) the Greek word “onycha” ονυξ, which means "fingernail" or "claw," was substituted for shecheleth.