WORD STUDY BEATEN OIL קתית זקתיזמחשׁ

Transcription

1 WORD STUDY שׁחמזיתקז תיתק BEATEN OIL Exodus 27:20: And thou shalt command the children of Israel that they bring thee pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always. I once asked a rabbi why the children of Israel had to bring olive oil that was beaten to be used to light the tabernacle. as expressed in Exodus 27:20. The rabbi knew of my experience as a camp director and as any good rabbi would do, he answered my question by asking a question.. He asked me what I would do if a log did not burn. Just because I was a camp director I really knew nothing more about camping that the residents of the camp who were all inner city teenagers. But I just happened to know the answer to that question because I faced it many times. I replied that you chop the log up into splinters and start the splinters on fire. The rabbi smiled and said: Does not God do the same with us if we do not start with the fire of God. I am always amazed as I read the first five books of the Old Testament as to how God would ask the children of Israel to do some seeming impractical thing. Our Western thinking causes us to first ask, What practical value would beaten olive oil

2 have to be used for the light of the tabernacle. Regular olive oil would do just fine and be more plentiful. Beaten oil should be used for special occasions like anointing or medication rather than burned quickly away for lighting purposes. Is it because beaten oil would burn brighter, or longer? Yet, if we think like a Hebrew, our first thought should be, What is God trying to illustrate here? You get two types of oil from the olive. The first which is the most pure, the finest and, of course, the most expensive is the beaten oil. Actually, the word beaten is not the best rendering. The word in the Hebrew is katith which means to break into pieces. The first oil to be extracted from the olive does not come from pressing the olives, but breaking, cutting or tearing them into pieces. Olives spring from a tree and turn a dark green. When they are ripe they turn black and inside the olive are a couple drops of liquid gold as it is called. This is the beaten oil, the purest and finest. This is used for anointing, medicinal purposes and other specific uses. After the liquid is drained from the olive by bruising it, so to speak, it is then crushed or pressed to extract the oil contained in the meat of the olive. This oil is not as pure and is used for cooking and put into lamps for light. However, for the light in the tabernacle the people were instructed to use only the pure, beaten oil. The first fruit of the olive to provide the light in the tabernacle. Here is another place I see Jesus. He is the first fruit who is the light of the world. I believe the use of the beaten oil was to symbolize the coming of the Messiah Jesus who would be the light shining in the darkness, he would be pure as the

3 oil was to be pure. Still I will not discount the good rabbi s illustration. I think of II Corinthians 4:7-8: We have this treasure (that is the life of Christ) in earthen vessels (our bodies) so that the surpassing greatness may be of God not of ourselves (it is for this reason) we are afflicted in every way but not crushed The words in paraphrases are mine. I believe the Apostle Paul was thinking of that little olive when he wrote this passage in II Corinthians. The olive is afflicted in every way to extract the pure oil, but it is not crushed because once it is crushed the oil mixes with the impurities and is not as pure. If we cannot catch the fire of God, God will break us into splinters or in pieces to extract that which is pure. He will not crush us so that the impurities mixes with the pure resulting in a lesser quality. I believe Exodus 27:20 provides a dual illustration The first is to picture the Messiah. The second is to picture ourselves. God wants to extract that which is pure, the life of Jesus Christ, from us. However, sometimes we are like that old log that will not catch fire. We just cannot catch the fire of Jesus. So God wants to put us through the type of difficulties that have the potential of crushing us, but He will not allow us to be crushed, instead what He does is strip us of all our trust in ourselves so that the world can see that our trust is in God and God alone. The world will be able to see that which is pure, Jesus Christ, the first fruit that lives inside our earthen vessels. If you enjoy our studies please remember to give them a thumbs

4 up on FaceBook and to share with friends! Don t forget that tomorrow is the last day to buy the Hebrew Word Study Book Lastly, a reminder that our sale on the study manual will be coming to an end soon! HEREW WORD STUDY THE BEATEN OIL Exodus 27:20: And thou shalt command the children of Israel that they bring thee pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always. I once asked a rabbi why the children of Israel had to use

5 olive oil that was beaten to be used to light the tabernacle as expressed in Exodus 27:20. The rabbi knew of my experience as a camp director and as any good rabbi would do, he answered my question by asking a question.. He asked me what I would do if a log did not burn. Just because I was a camp director I really knew nothing more about camping than the residents of the camp who were all inner city teenagers. But I just happened to know the answer to that question because I faced it many times. I replied that you chop the log up into splinters and start the splinters on fire. The rabbi smiled and said: Does not God do the same with us so He can start a fire in us. I am always amazed as I read the first five books of the Old Testament as to how God would ask the children of Israel to do some seeming impractical thing. Our Western thinking causes us to first ask, What practical value would beaten olive oil have to be used for the light of the tabernacle. Regular olive oil would do just fine and be more plentiful. Beaten oil should be used for special occasions like anointing or medication rather than burned quickly away for lighting purposes. Is it because beaten oil would burn brighter, or longer? Yet, if we think like a Hebrew, our first thought should be, What is God trying to illustrate here? You get two types of oil from the olive. The first which is the most pure, the finest and, of course, the most expensive is the beaten oil. Actually, the word beaten is not the best rendering. The word in the Hebrew is katith which means to break into pieces. The first oil to be extracted from the olive does not come from pressing the olives, but breaking, cutting or tearing them into pieces.

6 Olives spring from a tree and turn a dark green. When they are ripe they turn black and inside the olive are a couple drops of liquid gold as it is called. This is the beaten oil, the purest and finest. This is used for anointing, medicinal purposes and other specific uses. After the liquid is drained from the olive by bruising it, so to speak, it is then crushed or pressed to extract the oil contained in the meat of the olive. This oil is not as pure and is used for cooking and put into lamps for light. However, for the light in the tabernacle the people were instructed to use only the pure, beaten oil. The beaten oil is considered to be the first fruit of the olive and it is this oil that is used to provide the light in the tabernacle. I cannot help but see a picture of Jesus in this. He is the first fruit who is the light of the world. I believe the use of the beaten oil was to symbolize the coming of the Messiah Jesus who would be the light shining in the darkness, he would be pure as the oil was to be pure. Still I will not discount the good rabbi s illustration. I think of II Corinthians 4:7-8: We have this treasure (that is the life of Christ) in earthen vessels (our bodies) so that the surpassing greatness may be of God not of ourselves (it is for this reason) we are afflicted in every way but not crushed The words in paraphrases are mine. I believe the Apostle Paul was thinking of that little olive when he wrote this passage in II Corinthians. The olive is afflicted in every way to extract the pure oil, but it is not crushed because once it is crushed the oil mixes with the impurities and it is no longer pure. I believe there is another picture offered here. Sometimes

7 God has to break us up into little splinters in order for us to catch the fire of God, God will break us into splinters or in pieces to extract that which is pure. Yet, He will not crush us such that the impurities mix with the pure resulting in a lesser quality. Exodus 27:20 really gives us a dual illustration the first is to picture the Messiah. The second is to picture ourselves. God wants to extract that which is pure, the life of Jesus Christ, from us. However, sometimes we are like that old log that will not catch fire. We just cannot catch the fire of Jesus. So God has to put us through the type of difficulties that have the potential of crushing us, but He will not allow us to be crushed, instead what He will do is to strip us of all our trust in ourselves so that the world can see that our trust is in God and God alone. The world will be able to see that which is pure, Jesus Christ, the first fruit that lives inside our earthen vessels. WORD STUDY BEATEN FOR THE LIGHT

8 Exodus 27:20, And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always. Yesterday, I was starting to come down with a cold. My nose was constantly running. I met with my study partner who immediately pulled out her essential oil called Thieves. I have my own theory on how it got its name. The stuff is so strong and the smell is so strong it just steals the old cold away from you. Thieves and I carry a love/hate relationship. I can t stand the stuff yet I recently put it on an angry looking boil and the crazy thing disappeared in less than half the time it took for a previous boil to disappear and I didn t even have to have it lanced. Yes, and when I got home I was no longer running through my reserve supply of Kleenex and this morning I am not all stuffed up as I expected I would be. Apparently, Thieves got its name because in the middle ages thieves would enter a village ravaged by the Plague and steal from the people dying of the Plague. A great opportunity since no one would dare stop them lest they catch the Plague. Oddly, the thieves seemed immune to the Plague and never seemed to catch it. They claimed their secret was this essential oil that they carried around their neck like some amulet that protected them. So this essential got its

9 name Thieves. As Isaac Asimov indicated, myth is merely real life catching up with science. There was no magical power in the amulets, scientist have merely found that the Thieves essential oil in its purest state is a very highly antibacterial substance. Frankly, I think that stuff is so powerful in scent and reaction that no self-respecting plague wanted to be around it, let alone any people who might want to stop the thieves in their pursuits. As I grudgingly put up with the oils powerful scent I could not help but think of Exodus 27:20 which commanded the children of Israel to bring pure oil beaten for the light. This was not the olive oil that was your conventional oil produced from the grinding of a mill, but it had to come from the olive of the tree free of lees and dregs and had to be beaten with a pestle in a mortar and not ground in a mill so it would be the purest oil. When ground in a mill the stones were broken and ground and so the oil was not so pure. In other words the purest oil from the olive came from being beaten and is a much more difficult process in obtaining oil than it is from grinding the olives. This is the idea behind the essential oils. The essential oils differ from you standard run of the mill oil as the techniques to obtain 100% pure oil is a more difficult and costly process but the end results is a more natural and pure oil, hence much more powerful in scent and other usages. Well, of course God wanted to use the purest form of oil for the tabernacle, right? I am asking why use the purest form, any olive oil would burn in the lamps. The ancient rabbis used to instruct, Look to the tabernacle to understand your relationship with God.

10 When the sages and rabbis are studying and meditating on the Word of God they are very sensitive to unusual grammar or inconsistencies in language style. Whenever the Word of God veers from its usual language structure it is telling you to probe deeper into that verse. Here we find that the verse tells us that the olives are to be beaten for the light rather than beaten to be a light. The sages saw a subtle little hint here to something spiritual. Our souls are beaten not to become a light but for the sake of the Light. That word beaten is very interesting. In Hebrew it is the word kathith which is the noun form of kathath. As a noun it would be the beaten or the beaten oil. Just as the children of Israel was only to bring the beaten or crushed oil to the tabernacle, we are only to bring only our beaten, crushed selves to God. Perhaps that is what the Apostle Paul meant in 7 II Corinthians 4:7-12: But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of 11 Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. NIV. What God wants to do is to put us through that type of difficulty that has the potential of kathath(ing) (crushing) us so that He can strip away all that trust in ourselves so that the world can see our trust is in God alone. He wants to strip us of all those lees and dregs to make our faith pure in

11 Him. Pure faith, like pure oil, is the most lasting and most powerful. But say, look a little further into this word for beaten or crushed, it comes from a Semitic root KTH. This is an old Canaanite word used for beating into mortar. The Egyptians used mortar from combining clay, mud and sand and beating it into a fine past then using it to bind bricks together in construction. So the ancient Hebrew saw in the production of this pure olive oil a picture of their relationship with God. It is a process of beating all the impurities out of us to make a fine mortar which would permanently bind us together with God. Note, however, like producing a pure oil and not just a mass produced oil, this meant it was a slow difficult process. There is no way to reach a pure faith overnight, it cannot be mass produced, it has to be slowly developed. Just as the 100% pure oil does not run out in a little stream from a grinder but it comes out one or two drops at a time. Pure faith comes one or two drops at a time until you have enough to fill your lamp and light up with the eternal Light of God. Just as pure oil is much more effective and powerful than mass produced oil, pure faith is much more effective and powerful when produced over a period of time drop by drop. Then you are being kathath (beaten, crushed) for the Light (Jesus), a pure faith for the sake of God and not a faith to gain benefits for yourself.

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