Psalm 45/Notes/Lexical.v. 10.672637

v. 10 – כֶּתֶם is a rarer lexeme for "gold" (cf. the more common זָהָב), limited to nine instances in poetic texts, but which may indeed refer to a "special type of gold" (Noonan 2019, 136). Indeed, here as in Isaiah 13:12 and Job 28:16, the noun is modified by "Ophir," which is "a toponym located near the southern shore of the Red Sea. The region of Ophir was well known for its gold in antiquity, and the evidence thus points to a southern “Ophirite” origin for this term" (ibid.).