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Third Millennium Study Bible
Notes on Exodus 30:22-33

Anointing Oil - Exodus 30:22-33

Stipulations for priestly anointing oil are presented in this fourth divine speech (see "Tabernacle Instructions - Exodus 25:1-31:18" below). The anointing oil to be made was used for sacred purposes (for consecration, as here, and also for healing and restoration). The anointed elements, as here, were then most holy and thus made holy all that they touched.

Quality spices were used in making the anointing oil. MacKay says:

There were five ingredients in the anointing oil. 'Fine' in fine spices' is literally 'chief', 'main', or 'top', hence the NKJV translation 'quality spices'. Myrrh was an oily resin that exuded from the bark of a southern Arabian tree in summer months. This bitter-tasting but fragrant gum hardened into semi-liquid drops. Cinnamon was very rare and highly prized for its fragrance. It was prepared from the inner bark of small trees, and imported by the Phoenicians from Ceylon and India. Fragrant cane also came from India, but was grown in Arabia and Syria. Cassia is generally understood to have been a coarser kind of cinnamon, also prepared from the bark of a tree, though early Jewish sources treated it as the flowers of the cinnamon tree. These four spices were mixed with the olive oil.

The oil was used to anoint "Tent of Meeting, the ark of the Testimony, the table and all its articles, the lampstand and its accessories, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the basin with its stand. Anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them so they may serve me as priests" (Exod 30:26-30). Currid states:

The tabernacle and all the objects used in it are to be anointed as a sign of being set apart. These items are no longer common, and they are not to be used in ordinary ways. From now on, they are to be employed only in reference to God, his works and his purposes. As a reminder, the Hebrew term qodesh, that is, 'holy', literally means 'to be set apart for sacred use and honor'.

Finally, the last directive of the passage does not mean that the holiness of the objects is contagious. Rather, it is a command that only those who have been set apart - i.e., the priests and Levites - may touch the holy objects (see Exod 29:37).

Ryken adds:

Today anointing with oil has become an evangelical fad. Churches take a few drops of oil and anoint their sanctuary, their worship instruments, or even local buildings as a way of dedicating them to God. This practice has no basis in Scripture. Although God commanded the Israelites to anoint the tabernacle, he has given no similar command to the church. The only exception is anointing the sick, which is a ministry of the elders (James 5:14). Rather than anointing things with oil, which smacks of superstition, we should simply trust in the power of prayer. It is by praying that we invoke the ministry of the Holy Spirit, which Israel's sacred oil was intended to signify.

This oil was meant only for the priests and even an attempt to manufacture and use it for other purposes meant judgment (Exod 30:32-33). Ryken says:

The anointing oil was sacred. It was for the priests, and only for the priests. No one else was allowed to wear it. Nor were the priests allowed to keep it for personal use. The penalty for violating this command was excommunication, possibly even death. Anyone who tried to market God's holy perfume was cut off from Israel.

This shows how sacred it is to be anointed for God's service. This is true for ministers; a call to gospel ministry is a sacred gift that only God can give. But ministers are not the only people anointed to serve God. The Bible says that God "anointed us . . . and put his Spirit in our hearts" (2 Cor. 1:21b, 22a). In other words, every believer has been set apart for God's service. Our lives are sacred. By the anointing of the Holy Spirit, we have a high and holy calling to do God's work in the world.

Durham elaborates, "Under no circumstances, therefore, was the Oil of Anointment to be used on any person other than a priest being ordained, and employing its special formula to blend any of the oil for any personal use is strictly forbidden, upon pain of being "cut off" from one's own people, a penalty whose awful consequences are dramatized by the story of Cain (Gen 4:11-16)."

Related Resources

• Tabernacle Instructions - Exodus 25:1-31:18
• Furniture of the Tabernacle
• Divine Sovereignty: Is God Sovereign or Am I Free?
• Providence: Who is in Control of the World?
• The Covenants of Works and Grace: What Is Covenant Theology?
• Covenants in General
• Conditional and Unconditional Covenants

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