And thou, take best spices -- of liquid myrrh five hundred [shekels], and of sweet cinnamon the half -- two hundred and fifty, and of sweet myrtle two hundred and fifty,
God gives Moses a recipe for holy anointing oil. He names each spice and fixes its weight by the sanctuary shekel: myrrh, then half as much cinnamon, then aromatic cane. Commentators do not read this list as ancient perfumery. They read it as a portrait of Christ, and of the Spirit who showed His graces.
The recipe has two parts: spices and oil. Both stand for something, and they belong together.
The oil of holy ointment is given first. God gave the directions for making it. It held myrrh, cinnamon, sweet calamus, and cassia, each in its own amount, mixed with a hin of olive oil (vv. 23, 24). The Psalmist, speaking of the Messiah, says, "your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia." In the verse before, he says, "God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions." This helps us see what the holy anointing oil pictures. So the spices speak of the graces of Christ. His very garments smell of these sweet perfumes. But they were mixed with oil, and oil is a well-known figure of the Holy Spirit. Put the two together, and we learn this: the graces of Christ — the moral fragrance of His excellencies — came out in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Myrrh comes first, and the verse calls for twice as much of it as of the cinnamon. The way people harvest it shapes what writers see in it.
Myrrh, the first ingredient, comes from a cut made in the tree. It seeps out in drops, like drops of blood or tears. It smells sweet, but tastes bitter. So it stands for the sufferings of Christ. He endured the bitterness of the cross, and we reap the sweetness of its results.
Myrrh seeps out of a cut on its own. The other spices reach the mixture another way. (Older translations call the aromatic cane "sweet calamus" — the name used in these quotes.)
The cinnamon, calamus and cassia all come from the bark of a tree or from a plant. Each one was ground into a very fine powder. This painful process produces rich fragrances. They all speak of the sufferings of our Lord, and, to a lesser degree, of our own deep experiences with Him along life's path.
Writers differ on how far the individual spices can be pressed. Some identify each one closely; others hold back. One notes that the sweet cane grew in wet, muddy ground:
Personal, absolute righteousness, growing in the mire of the earth, He shed nothing but fragrance around — a fragrance which, blending with all His moral characteristics, made the Beloved One a "precious ointment" — His Father's complete delight.
The amounts are exact. God weighs each spice by a standard of His own.
God is a God of knowledge, and He weighs all actions (1 Samuel 2:3). He weighed the proud king of Babylon and found him wanting (Daniel 5:27). And "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." The Old Testament word for "glory" is "weight," from a word meaning "to be heavy." So by God's standard, all fall short of the full weight that alone can glorify Him. There is therefore only One who, when tested, was found at full and true weight. He could say, "I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do" (John 17:4). And not only was the full weight of that which glorified God found in Him, but all was in true and proper proportion.
The four spices do not stay separate. They form one ointment, and that unity carries its own meaning.
And so all was blended in Him in perfect harmony. The result was unique. Each trait was so filled with the others that the fragrance of each was found in all. Nor was it that He acted according to one character at one time and another at another. His love burned just as hot when He rebuked sin as His uprightness held firm when He comforted the broken-hearted. He did not put on or lay off these characters.
The oil was not for general use. No Israelite could copy it or keep it at home.
This precious ointment, the holy anointing oil, is described for us in Exodus 30... And we learn that it was to be for God's sanctuary alone. It had not to be imitated, nor had any of the Israelites to have it in their houses. God reserved it for Himself and His own pleasure. He surrounded Himself with its fragrance in His own dwelling. The reason was this: as a picture, it told out how precious Christ was to God while He lived His life of holy devotion to Him on earth.
One writer draws a warning from the recipe for anyone who studies these things.
Handle these holy themes apart from the Spirit, and it is only a mental exercise. It would be barren or worse, as dry as handling the spices without the oil. To become an ointment, the Spirit must form them into a holy compound, "after the art of the apothecary" — the perfume maker. And this means more than the Spirit guiding us into the truth. He also ministers that truth to the soul in communion.
- Fragrance named. The four spices stand for the graces of Christ. The olive oil stands for the Holy Spirit. Together they show those graces coming out in the Spirit's power.
- Fragrance released. Myrrh comes out through a cut in the tree; the other three are ground to powder. The scent is real, but it costs the crushing.
- Fragrance weighed. The sanctuary shekel sets each amount. It is God's own standard. By it all fall short of His glory, and only One weighs full and true.
- Fragrance blended. The four never act in turn but form one ointment: each quality is found within all the others, never put on or laid aside.
- Fragrance reserved. No one could copy the oil or keep it at home. God kept this fragrance for His own dwelling and His own pleasure.
and of cassia five hundred, after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of olive oil a hin;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
and make of it an oil of holy ointment, a perfume of perfumery after the work of the perfumer it shall be the holy anointing oil.
The instructions now become a recipe: fragrant spices measured out and worked into olive oil. The mixture is holy, and that raises three questions. What does the oil picture? Who could it touch? Why does a stern warning follow?
The word behind "blended as by the perfumer" names a trade. Which one?
In Scripture this term does not mean someone who mixes drugs for medicine. It means someone who blends ointments — what we would now call a "perfumer." That is how the margin renders it at Exodus 30:25, where the holy anointing oil is an ointment compounded "after the art of the apothecary." The same is said of the holy incense.
Nothing was left to the maker's own taste.
The five ingredients were of the best quality. Preparing them took a great deal of time and money. The formula was exact, and no one was to change it. It named exact weights and volumes.
The mixture has two parts, spices and oil. Each carries its own meaning.
The spices, then, speak of the graces of Christ. His very garments smell of these sweet perfumes. But they were mixed with oil, and oil, as many have often said, is a figure of the Holy Spirit. Put the two together, and we learn this: the graces of Christ — the moral fragrance of His excellencies — came out in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Myrrh heads the list of spices. How it leaves the tree matters.
Myrrh, the first ingredient, comes from a cut made in the tree. It seeps out in drops, like drops of blood or tears. It smells sweet, but tastes bitter. So it stands for the sufferings of Christ: He endured the bitterness of the cross, and we reap the sweetness of its results.
Spices and oil kept apart are not an ointment. The same is true of the truths they stand for.
Handle these holy themes apart from the Spirit, and the result is only a mental exercise. It would be barren or worse, as dry as handling the spices without the oil. The spices become an ointment only when the Spirit forms them into a holy compound, "after the art of the Apothecary." And that means more than the Spirit guiding us in the truth. He also ministers it to the soul in communion.
This oil had one use: pouring. It went on the tent, its furniture, and the priests.
Everything connected with the house of God must be ordered in the power of the Holy Spirit — how it is run, its service, and all the priestly work carried on in it. Ordered that way, it will express the sweet fragrance of Christ to God... So suppose everything connected with the house of God were arranged even according to His own word, and yet the holy anointing oil — the power of the Holy Spirit — were missing. Then it could not be acceptable to Him.
It touched people too, and the rule about who could receive it was strict.
This oil anointed the whole tabernacle with all its vessels. Aaron and his sons were also anointed and set apart for the priest's office. No one was allowed to make or use such an ointment. The command was that it should not be poured on man as man, only on Aaron and his sons as priests... It is a picture of the Holy Spirit, with whom only the Lord Jesus and believers are anointed.
Anyone holding the recipe could copy the mixture. A solemn command forbade it.
The making of this, and also of the ointment, was a sacred commission, invested with a charge of unusual solemnity; and the reason is evident... The command is given: whoever makes any imitation of the incense shall be cut off from his people. Experience has seen it, and prophecy has foreseen it — nothing attracts a certain kind of mind like this very work of composing counterfeit Christs.
The danger is not only public teaching but self-deception:
Our hearts are so subtle that we often deceive ourselves, and others too. We accept the sweetness of nature, its charm and good nature, as the work of the Holy Spirit, as a likeness to Christ. There can be no likeness to Christ except as the result of the work of the Holy Spirit.
- Compounded — the word points to a perfumer's craft. The weights were fixed, the ingredients the best, and no one could adjust the formula.
- Carried — the spices speak of the graces of Christ. The oil that holds them is a figure of the Holy Spirit, so His power carries those graces out.
- Blended — spices without oil stay dry. Truth handled apart from the Spirit is only a mental exercise; the Spirit ministers it to the soul.
- Poured — tent, furniture and priests all received it. A house of God arranged by His own word still needs the Spirit's power to please Him.
- Guarded — God allowed no copy. A counterfeit likeness to Christ, taught to others or believed about ourselves, is never the Spirit's work.