to blend fragrant ingredients into a scented oil, incense, or ointment; the skilled work of a perfumer.
This is a craft word. It does not mean stirring two things together in general; it means working measured aromatic ingredients into a finished scented product, the way a trained tradesman does. Nearly every time it appears, something fragrant is being made: the anointing oil for the sanctuary, the incense burned before God, or the spiced oils packed around a dead king.
The one word covers three things in the Hebrew Bible:
- the act of blending itself, as in the rule that forbids anyone to copy the sanctuary oil
- the tradesman who does the blending, so that "the work of a perfumer" becomes a stock phrase for expert compounding
- once, the seasoning of a pot of boiling meat, the only place the word leaves the perfumer's bench
Because what the blending produced was holy, the word carries a weight that plain mixing does not. Exodus warns that anyone who compounds a copy of the sanctuary oil is to be cut off from his people, which tells you this was recognized, teachable expertise and not a casual recipe. The finished ointment has a noun of its own (מִרְקַחַת), and so does the tradesman (רַקָּח); a temple staff list in 1 Chronicles even names the priests who were put in charge of this work.