Alvah

ALVAH: Thus the wood is called which God shewed Moses, that with it he Exod. xv. 25.might sweeten the waters of Marah. The Scripture has not preserved the name of it, but the Mahometans give it that of Alva, and maintain that Moses had a piece of it, which he received by succession from the Patriarchs, Noah having kept it in the Ark, and deliver’d it to his Posterity¹. Moses, as they say, placed it afterwards in the Ark of the Covenant, together with the Manna and tables of the Law. The word Alva has some relation to Aloes, which is a very bitter wood; and some Interpreters are of opinion, that Moses took a very bitter sort of wood on purpose, that so the power of God might be the more remarkable in sweetening these waters. Josephus says that this Legislator used the wood which he found by chance, lying at his feet.

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