PRESIDENT'S ESSAY
Anointed Bread
POSTED
March 25, 2019

Leviticus is the oilest book of the Bible. The Hebrew shemen is used 42 times (6 x 7); the closest competitor is Numbers, with 34 uses.

The uses of shemen are clustered. Leviticus 2 uses the word 9 times, all with reference to the preparation of the tribute offering (minchah). In the description of the priests’ ordination (chs. 8-10), it’s used 7 times, both of anointing oil and of oil as an ingredient in minchot. Shemen is used 6 times in chapters 6-7, which are concerned with minchah, either alone or with peace offerings, and 15 times in Leviticus 14, the rite for purification of one with skin disease. Leviticus 21 refers twice to the priest who is anointed with oil on the head, and Leviticus 23:13 requires oil with the tribute offering at the presentation of the first sheaf.

Leviticus 24:2 is an outlier. Only there does Leviticus refer to the oil of “beaten” (katiyt) olives that lights the lampstand (cf. Exodus 27:20). Beaten oil is also required with the tribute offering of the ordination rite (Exodus 29:2). Beaten oil is apparently purer than pressed oil.

Overall, we have a roughly chiastic pattern, with a coda:

A. Oil in minchah, ch. 2

B. Oil for anointing, ch 8-9

C. Oil for purification from skin disease, ch 14

B’. Anointed priest, Lev 21:10, 12

A’. Oil with minchah, 23:13

X. Beaten oil for lamps, 24:2

The uses in chapters 8-10 also form a chiasm:

A. Anointing oil, 8:2, 10, 12

B. Oil in minchah, 8:26

C. Anointed with oil, 8:30

B’. Oil in minchah, 9:4

A’. Anointing oil, 10:7

Exodus links anointing oil with oil for light (25:6; 35:28: we’et-hashemen lema’or ulshemen hammishchah), which suggests a conceptual link between the two: A lamp is a stylized priest, a priest is a living lamp. Priests shine with glory; the high priest has oil on his head, like a tongue of potential fire, along with a gleaming gold crown. As the lamps “watch” over the twelve loaves of showbread, so priests are watchers over Israel.

Leviticus elaborates another facet (cf. Exodus 29:2): Cooking oil. Every form of minchah included oil (Leviticus 2:1-2, 4-7, 15-16). Worshipers “poured” (Leviticus 2:2, 6) oil on flour and on broken fragments of oven-baked cakes, as Jacob poured oil over rocks (Genesis 28:18; 35:14) and prophets poured oil on kings. Worshipers “anointed” (mashach, Leviticus 2:4) wafers.

That hints that flour and bread represent people, who can be anointed to enter into the fiery presence of Yahweh, who can be anointed as lights and priests. Dust-like flour, anointed with the oil that represents the Spirit, becomes Adam bread that can approach the altar. Flour and oil, glorified into bread in oven, griddle, or pan, are matured human beings prepared as a soothing aroma.

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