The mandrakes give a smell
Or, "those lovely flowers", as Junius and Tremellius, and Piscator, translate the words; even those the church proposed to give to her beloved, when in the fields Some take them to be violets; others, jessamine; others, more probably, lilies F7; as the circumstances of time and place, when and where they flourished, and their fragrant smell, and figure like cups, show. Ravius F8 contends, that the word signifies, and should be rendered, "the branches put forth their sweet smelling flowers"; and thinks branches of figs are meant, which give a good smell, agreeably to ( Song of Solomon 2:13 ) ; and which he supposes to be the use of the word in ( Jeremiah 24:1 ) ; and to his sense Heidegger F9 agrees; only he thinks the word "branches" is not to be restrained to a particular species, but may signify branches of sweet smelling flowers, and fruits in general. Ludolphus F11 would have the fruit the Arabians, call "mauz", or "muza", intended; which, in the Abyssine country, is as big as a cucumber, and of the same form and shape, fifty of which grow upon one and the same stalk, and are of a very sweet taste and smell; from which cognation of a great many on the same stalk he thinks it took the name of "dudaim", the word here used, and in ( Genesis 30:14-16 ) . But the generality of interpreters and commentators understand by it the mandrakes; and so it is rendered by the Septuagint, and in both the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, on ( Genesis 30:14 ) ; but it is questionable whether the same plant that is known among us by that name is meant, since it is of a strong ill scented and offensive smell; and so Pliny says F12 of it: though Dioscorides, Levinus, Lemnius F13, and Augustine