BibleProject - What’s So Special About Oil? – Anointed E2

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

What’s so special about oil? Why does the Bible specify that oil—not water or wine—must be used to anoint a person or place? In this episode, Tim and Jon continue discussing the biblical theme of anointing, exploring why God designates oil to symbolically represent the life-giving power of his Spirit.View more resources on our website →Timestamps Part one (00:00-9:07)Part two (9:07-28:37)Part three (28:37-40:33)Part four (40:33-55:53)Referenced ResourcesInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience our entire library of resources in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTS“Birth” by Mr. Käfer“Reliving” by No Spirit“Just Wanna Be Free” by Boonie MayfieldShow produced by Cooper Peltz with Associate Producer Lindsey Ponder, Lead Editor Dan Gummel, and Editors Tyler Bailey and Frank Garza. Mixed by Tyler Bailey. Podcast annotations for the BibleProject app by Hannah Woo.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

We're exploring a new theme on the podcast called the anointed. Anointing is taking oil, smearing it on someone, and it has a very specific purpose. Oil marks the personal place that's the bridge between heaven and earth. Cool, but why oil? Why not wine? Let's go on on. So, what we're going to trace down in this conversation is there's a recipe for special annoying thing oil.

You find it in the Torah. The recipe for annoying oil is given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, and it's not just oil. It's oil infused with plungeant aromatic spices, and it makes this incredible perfume. How creations packed with these plants that if you just ate the leaf, you would not enjoy it, but you crush it, pulverize it, or soak it, and then it can infuse this with the taste that just is like otherworldly. What I think the biblical authors want us to see in this anointing oil is the life of

Eden condensed into a little dense liquid. The life of Eden begins with the water of life, filling the dry ground and forming the human, and then God's spirits fills the human. Water and spirit. Marking humanity as a place where heaven and earth are one. And so to remember that place, or even to designate a place to be like that, we annoyed it with oil. There's moments when, through liquid and spirit, a person of place is marked as a special portal between heaven and earth

to bring about that reunion of heaven and earth in some way. And I think that's where all of a sudden, and all these themes come crashing together of the liquid life and the spirit are joined images. And that's what anointing means in the Bible. Today Tim McEy and I continue exploring the theme of the Innoy Tid, looking at the symbol of oil in the Bible. John Collins and you're listening to Bible Project Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Here we go.

Hey Tim. Hey John, hello. Hi. Hey, we're just kind of right at the beginning of a new conversation. Mm-hmm. On the theme of anointing. Anointing. Smirring someone with oil. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, so we can't really set the stage. Last episode. Mm-hmm. You talked about how this was something that the early church was doing. James actually said to in the letter that he wrote, to the early Christians, to do it when you're praying for healing for someone, smear oil on them. And just got a big question like, where did this come from? And actually what that brought us to was a ritual.

We find in the Old Testament, he revival of anointing people with oil. And we very specifically saw that it was not just anyone, it wasn't people who needed prayer, actually, I suppose you could pray for these people. But it was specifically to select one human and say, you now represent all of Israel in the case of Old Testament in a very special way. You're representing God to the people and the people to God. You are a bridge now, or a gate between heaven and earth. So while you are amongst the people,

you need to now be connected to God in a special way. So heaven and earth can be united through you. And so this was done with the priests. Aaron was the first one who I did. This was done to kings. And one time it was done to a prophet.ointed, this was done to kings, and one time it was done to a prophet. Well, he was said to be done.

Supposed to have been done. We don't know. For a prophet. But ever was done. That's right. It also a few times objects are anointed. We didn't talk about it, but I think I remember that tabernacle objects. Yeah, we'll talk about it in just a moment.

Okay. But the one we did talk about was the story of Jacob when he was asleep out in the middle of nowhere and he was on the run from his brother who he had deceived. And he's out in the wilderness and he fell asleep and a gateway to heaven appears a ramp to heaven. The gods on the ramp angels on the ramp and he's like this is the house of God. Yeah. The gate of the skies. He found the gate. Yeah, the gate. The gate found him.

As you said, Yeah, stargate. Not a sci-fi booth. Yeah. And so, the big aha is to anoint someone or something, is to signify it as a connection point between heaven and earth, whether a person or a place.

Yep. And all of this is the background a connection point between heaven and earth, whether a person or a place. Yep, and all of this is the background that is condensed and summarized in a title, the anointed one, that is the main title applied to Jesus throughout the New Testament, Jesus Christ. When we say Jesus Christ, that's Jesus Christos. Jesus the anointed one. Yep.

Christos means the person smeared with oil. The person smeared with oil, which now we at least know on one level, the basic level of meaning for a Jewish man and audience to say that about someone is that this is a person who is marked out to be a link, a bridge between heaven and earth. That's what it means to call somebody the Christos. Yeah. Now, the big question for me, we started the conversation saying that the early church was doing this for anyone who was sick. And you told a story of, you know, when you were a kid,

this was done to you and you were really sick. And that's different. Applying oil to someone and praying for healing is different than appointing oil on someone to establish them as the representative bridge between the divine and the land. And you said, well, if something going on with the people of Jesus being called the anointed ones. Yeah, Christians. Christians. No longer is it just one person,

but like through Jesus now, this anointing is going out. So I think we'll get there. But you said, even before that, we need to appreciate deeper what it is that the oil represents. Represents. So far we're just kind of taking for granted. Okay, we're using oil. Yeah, that's right.

Oil marks a personal place that's a bridge between heaven and earth. Cool, but why oil? Why not? Why oil? Water. Why not? Why not? Yeah, wine would stain.

You were in a nice linen afoed that day. Yeah, yeah. Doesn't smear as well. You know, runs too much. Yeah, so something's going on with the whale. Yeah, why a whale? What's going on? So, yeah, what we're going to trace down in this conversation is, there's a recipe for special and anointing oil. You can find it in the Torah.

Second, scroll the Torah. See a business opportunity here. for special andointing oil. You can find it in the Torah. Seconds grow all the Torah. See a business opportunity here. I'm sure it's, well, leave that for the moment. And what we're going to see is that recipe and why and how and when it gets used all points back to the Garden of Eden. So lo and behold, we're gonna spend most of this conversation meditating on the Garden of Eden story in Genesis chapter two, which, you know, all the main themes begin in the first chapters of the Bible.

So it's inevitable that we'll be pulled back there. It's like a gravity well. Keeps pulling us back in the early chapters of Genesis. I suppose I'm the one who allows it. I let myself get pulled in. Yeah. Yeah. And that I have. It's great.

It's great. I force you to go with me. It's awesome. Okay. So first, two, an ancient recipe for making an 18 oil. I'm going to do a little bit of the same. So, in Exodus chapter 30, which is right near the end of when Moses has been up on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights, up in the storm cloud, and he's been seeing God's heavenly temple and being shown all of these things. And then he is being given a blueprint for how he is to create a copy or an image of those things that's called the pattern, and that will be the tabernacle.

So you get this image, the tabernacle and all the curtains and the segmented boundary areas and what they all mean and the imagery that it's all a pattern or an image of some heavenly reality. Then what he's told is that after you make the tabernacle and all the furniture, all the pieces, all the stuff. Yeah. Here's what you are to do. You shall make a holy, anointing oil. So holy, meaning set apart for a space that's dedicated to the presence of God. Okay. So it's the oil that marks a heaven-honored spot that is sacred and set apart from any other space. Yeah.

It's to be a perfume mixture. The work of a perfumer, it shall be wholly anointing oil. Okay, we'll look at the rest, Peter Moment. But here's what gets anointed. What gets anointed is the tent of meeting. Oh, the word meeting. Divine and human. Meeting.

Oh. It's a bridge place of heaven and earth. Yeah, because the tabernacles often call the tentative meeting or are always called. Ah, no, sometimes it's called the dwelling place, referring to the place that hosts God's glory, but when it's called the tentative meeting, it's referring to the union of divine and human meeting in the tent. So, a noise that's actually just big tent, big tent. The structure itself. Yep.

Then the golden box called the arc of the testimony. Then the table, that is the table for the bread, the sacred bread. That's in the holy place. It's in the holy place. And all the utensils get wiped down. What are the utensils used for? Oh, well, there's poles that are put in, there's little rings on that table,

and then there's poles put into them, maybe plates and stuff like that. It goes on the table. The menorah, the seven lampstand, and all of its utensils, which is little snuffers, and lamp lighters and so on. Annoyed the altar of incense, Annoyed the altar of burnt offering, and then all of its utensils like the knives and the forks. This is what's out in the courtyard.

Out in the courtyard. Also the basin for water in its stand. Mark them as holy. They will become most holy. Whoever touches them will become holy. Then, a knight, Aaron, and his sons, mark them as holy, so they can serve me. So the whole pre-comprehensive. Every part of this space is a heaven-honoured space. So when an Israelite goes through the door, the gateway into the courtyard, you are in heaven. On Earth. That's the idea. Was this done just in its inauguration? What was this done every time they set it up? It added to inauguration. That's the whole idea. Yep. Okay. So what is this oil? Exodus 30, verse 22.

Yeah. Let's get a perfumer involved. Yeah. Yeah. Take for yourself. This is what God says to Moses. Take for yourself the finest of spices. Flowing, mirror, 500 checkles.

Fregrant, cinnamon, half as much. A checkle is an amount. A unit of weight. It's unit of weight. Okay. This mirror needs the flow. Yeah, mirror. This was dictionary work I had to do.

Oh. Mirror. It's a resin. It's a southern Arabian gum resin. Oh. With a strong aromatic smell. It flows out of trees, unique to South Arabia. Oh.

So it's a gummy. Yeah, it's a tree sap. Tree sap. Yep, you know, maybe, well, here in Pacific Northwest. Like we've got pines and stuff. We've got pines and this is what makes. This is a very distinct pine tree sap smell. Yes, yeah.

Have you ever tried to taste it? Oh boy, maybe as a kid, yeah. Is it pretty good? I think maybe I was with my kids and they wanted. boy, maybe as a kid, yeah. I think maybe I was pretty good. With my kids and they wanted, because it smells amazing. When you're hiking in the summer, like in the cascade mountains, you know, where we live, and a warm afternoon up in the evergreen forest, and it's just, it's just the warm smell of pine. And you walk by a tree and it just smells amazing, and it has sap. It smells extra amazing.

And so, I know this was some years ago, because the logic for my boys was, if it smells amazing, like in our kitchen, then it probably is gonna taste amazing. It's horrible. It's the most bitter, so bitter. But it smells so sweet. Isn't that interesting?

Totally. Anyway, honey doesn't, I mean, honey has a smell. It's like the opposite. But it doesn't smell nearly as strong as it tastes. And it's like the opposite. It's also interesting that the default smell that we want for our cars. Right? Like when we add an air freshener, like the main set is pine.

Pine. Yeah. Yeah, what's that? In the shape of a tree, yeah. Yeah, when did that start? And why? It's like, you know what I need in this car?

I need the smell of the forest. I love it. Okay, so, all right, this holy, anointing oil, how to southern Arabian tree smell to it. That's my. I want to smell that now. Like right now, we should have a little sample of all these. Yeah, we should. So you have a base amount of my.

Okay. I'm just going to imagine pine. Just go with Pine. Then you get half as much of cinnamon. Cinnamon? Hmm. Smells so amazing. Cinnamon is amazing.

And Wikipedia search taught me that the cinnamon tree is indigenous to modern Sri Lanka. Didn't know that. I didn't spread all throughout the ancient world, obviously. It's a tree. Is it from the bark of the tree? Where do you get the cinnamon? Mm, that's my favorite. Just cinnamon, sugar, and butter, like on bread. It doesn't really get much better than that, honestly.

It's true. Yeah, bark, the inner bark of the tree. Oh yeah, bark strips. Yeah, yeah, have you seen those? Yeah, okay, the cinnamon stick. When you see a cinnamon stick, yeah, and it's curled, it's a bark strip. It's taking the inner layer of the bark,

but then it kind of folds up because, because trees are round. Yeah. You used to be known, oh yeah, as saylon cinnamon, because the island shrunk, it was formerly known as saylon, I think in the British colonial era. I think spices are just marvelous in general. Do you think about it?

It's incredible. Okay, all right. So let us marvel more. Yeah. Because this is a part of the meaning of the oil. Yeah. Yeah, why are they so amazing? Well, I mean, just think about how bland food would be,

how bland food is. Yeah, without spices. Yeah. And all the spices is like like you find some sort of plant Yes, and you wouldn't eat this plant normally Mm-hmm. Like it wouldn't make a meal. Yeah, but you take the flavor of that and then you spread that into a dish In combination with other flavors and all the sudden. Yeah, you have what was a meal is now a cuisine, you know sudden you have what was a meal is now a cuisine, you know? And how rare and special it was, I mean, there was whole trades, global trades,

economies, we set up on like, we need some of that spice. Yeah. Yeah. Because it gets some of that over here. No, the spice route from Southeast Asia through India all the way over to North Africa. Yeah. This was a money route. Huge, huge amount of well.

It's transforming our food experience. Yeah, and this is all long before, I mean, the wheel had been vented, but this was long before planes trains and automobiles. Yeah, no, really, really big deal. I've been really into paprika lately The next boring paprika. It's it's sensitive. You can over do it Yeah, and if it's not done right it can go wrong

But the right amount of paprika in a certain savory kind of dish You can really do cook? Well, I'm more of the sous chef Okay at our house, but there's certain things. On Friday nights, we do like a Shabbat celebration, it's Taco Night, and I usually make the guacamole. So I've been exploring all different kinds of ways to make guacamole. I'm the guacamole guy at home too. Are you? Really?

And that's really simple. I mean, really it's garlic and onions and lime. Onions. Oh yeah, you chop up onions really fine. You do garlic. Yeah. And it's hard to do too much garlic, but it's possible. Yes, I've done it. You've done it.

Yeah. And it's not like this is an enjoyable, it's kind of more like we smell horrible now. Yeah, that's what it's, yeah, totally right. Yeah. No, the lime's super important, salt, of course. Yeah, yeah. And then, but a little paprika. Okay, let me try the paprika. Yeah, or sometimes a regano.

Uh-huh, okay. But that's a good example of a regano, it's just like crushed leaves. Yeah. Of some tree, the oregano tree, I have no idea. It's a, I think it's a plant. So what we're meditating on is about how creations packed with these plants that if you just ate the leaf, you would not enjoy it.

Right. But you crush it, we're pulverized it, we're soak it, and then it can infuse this with a taste that just is like otherworldly. Just transforms. Okay. So that experience of taking what is mundane and filling it with some transformative power through this dust or this smell from plants, cultivated plants. From plants.

Well, I mean wild plants, but or cinnamon cinnamon, it's a tree, but yeah. Yeah, trees and plants. Okay, so we're not done yet. There's also some. Oh yeah, we only got to. We only got to two. So yeah, we got some mer, we got some, we got some tree sap, a little bit cinnamon.

Here we go. Yeah, okay, fragrant cane. Okay. So, oh yeah. So Hebrew, like the coagicographers, which is what you call people who study the meaning of ancient words and ancient languages, are not sure what exact plant is being referred to here. It's only the word is only used here in Jeremiah chapter 6, but some sort of cane or reed plant that has a really strong smell.

Okay. Have you ever had sweet cane before? You're talking about sugar. Sugar cane. Yeah. That's like full of the sugar water inside. You just take a bite out of it. Oh, you just eat the whole thing. I've never got that.

Well, you take a bite, you peel off the part. Oh, you chew it and then spit it out. You peel off and just you take a bite and just soaked goodness, but it's pulp. Yeah, yeah. And then you spit out the pulp, but it's pulp. Yeah, yeah. And then you spit out the pulp, but. I haven't done it. No. It's a pretty remarkable experience.

But my hunch is this is some kind of smelly because the whole thing is about the smell. Right. This oil. OK. Then after that is. We're going to have a hard time making this if we don't even know what it is.

That's true. The last one is Cassia 500 500 shekels of that. Oh, that's a lot. Yeah, Cassia, Hebrew word Kida, some sort of aromatic bark from the East Asian evergreen tree. You mix these four things together. You would have either boiled or dried them,

crushed them into a powder. And then the last thing is you mix it with a bunch of olive oil. So this mer cinnamon, fragrant cane, cassia. One part mer, half a part cinnamon. Yep, half part cane. Half part cane, one part cassia. Yep.

Mix it with some olive oil. And you've got some holy and nointing oil And you've got some holy and nointing oil. You've got the holy and nointing oil. Yeah, yeah. So you could go find these things in the wild, but odds are, you know, if you're gonna get them through the spice trade, that they're being cultivated. But, you know, by this point.

So you have these cultivated plants that smell and taste amazing, and then you mix it with the oil. Now what's oil? So oil, like olive oil, is that's so funny. I was just looking at pictures that Jessica and I took when we went to go harvest olives on the Mount of Olives. When we lived in Jerusalem.

Yeah, we had some friends who lived on the Mount of Olives. When we lived in Jerusalem. Yeah, we had some friends who lived on the west side of the Mount of Olives and they lived next to an olive field and got to know the people who owned it. And so when they harvested, they said, invite some of your friends to come. It was a remarkable experience. We spent all afternoon on just forked trees. Yeah. Thousands of olives.

So you get this olive and then you put them in burlap bags on just forked trees. Yeah. Thousands of olives. What? So you get this olive, and then you put them in burlap bags, and then you take them. And the next thing is they go get crushed. Because you can eat olive. Ooh, and they're actually really bad. They're terribly bitter if you eat them off the tree. It's right off the tree. Yeah, yeah, they got to be.

And they're probably pretty like tough. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So you have to be soaked and brined and pickled and all that, and that's the olives we typically eat have been soaked in various ways. But if you take them in their fresh state and crush them with stones, what will ooze out is this oil?

And there's different ways to make it right, virgin extra virgin. I'd actually, I don't know what this means technically. I think I have to do with the age of olives. But olive oil is this compressed form of the life juice of this fruit of this tree. Yeah, what are you technically getting? You're getting because there's water in there. And then you're just like the water is soaked with fat. Ooh. Here, here. Thank you Wikipedia. It's a liquid fat obtained from olives produced by pressing

whole olives and extracting the oil. There you go. Liquid fat, the composition of olive oil varies with lots of different things mainly it oh consists of oleic acid. oleic acid. Maybe why it's bitter. In other fatty acids, linoleic acid and palmitic acid. Oleic acid. Wait, oh, you can just have it, it's what. It's a fatty acid that occurs naturally in various animals and plants.

Vegetable fats and oils colorless odorless. When I think of acid, I think of like something that's um, I am not a chemist. Obviously. I don't even know what acid really is. It's a mon-no-one saturated omega-9 fatty acid. Great. Can you oil like any plant? Well, if you like crush any plant, are you gonna get some sort of oil? Well, you get some kind of liquid. You'll get some sort of liquid. Yeah.

Right. So then it's just, I guess, about the composition of it, whether it's the sticky smooth or more of the... What's the substance of the oil? How useful it is. Because yeah, I mean, we're in the oil renaissance of sorts. We got avocado oil. Yeah. We've got sunflower seed oil sunflower seed oil. Stuff's awesome. Yeah, but probably the richer or fattier the the plant is then the yeah, the richer the oil. Yeah. Okay.

But so that's thinking in terms of maybe our categories. So try and imagine an ancient imagination. You've got these plants that you cultivate and orchard that smell and taste like heaven. Oh, you're talking about the fragrances. Yeah, totally. I mean, you're just like, wow, like myr, Cassiac. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Okay. And then olive oil is this compressed dense liquid that we've...

The life of the olive. Yeah, it comes from the very fruit of the olive, and when you add it to dishes, I mean, olive oil was one of the main staples of cooking and life in the Mediterranean. Just dip it in bread and oil and- Yeah, you can dip it. You can use it as skin lotion. Multi-purpose. Multi-purpose, you can use it as skin lotion.

Multi-purpose. Multi-purpose, and then use for all kinds of cooking. Use it for your oil lamps. Okay, right. Yeah, so all of oil was just like a staple of daily life in, you know, on the East Mediterranean where this relates where. So and all of it comes from the life of the fruit of this tree. Yeah.

So, there's something about the connection of gardens, cultivated gardens, producing these smells and tastes and substances that bring life and richness and lusciousness and taste and smell. So, these are all of the feelings associated with garden and orchards. And so it's an interesting that this is the substance that's used to get smeared all over the tabernacle. And what is the tabernacle? The tabernacle is a sacred space that's set apart as a portal between heaven and earth, divine and human, and it's decorated, right? The tent and the fabrics are all decorated with palm trees and pomegranates and cherubim, heaven and earth creatures.

So the heavenly garden that is the tabernacle is smeared with this compressed liquid symbol of life. It's like this, it's liquid life. Plant life. Plant life, yeah, but condensed into this thick, rich, smelly liquid that I think becomes an image of the life of Eden. In other words, what I think the biblical authors want us to see in this anointing oil is the life of Eden condensed into a little dense liquid, which will lead a person to ask, well, what's going on in the Garden of Eden? What does the Garden of Eden mean? That this liquid

would become a symbol of that. There's kind of the steps, at least, that my journey of trying to understand this has taken me. So that leads me to ask, what if we were to go meditate on the Garden of Eden for a moment and ask ourselves to do the themes of liquid and life appear together anywhere in the Garden of Eden story and lo and behold, the opening sentences give us a profound meditation on just that very thing. Okay, returning our attention to the second narrative unit in the story of Genesis. See, of the seven-day creation story. Yeah.

Let go from Genesis 1 to chapter 2, verse 3. Maybe just quick, honorary mention is that the opening sentences of the seven-day creation story combine, it begins with the land being dark and wild and waste, and darkness over the face of the deep waters, but there hovering over the face of the waters is the spirit of God. And then what happens is the spirit of God connected with the Word of God, that God speaks ten times over the course of the seven days, God calls into existence a sprouting, flourishing garden on the dry land with fruit plants and vegetation up out of the waters. So the seven-day creation narrative has God calling a garden into existence out of the

waters by means of His Word and Spirit. Not explicitly a garden, but you're saying that God creates the dry land, comes out of the waters, but then the dry land sprouts with essentially a garden. Yeah. Trees and plants and... Totally. Yeah, the description of what's growing on day three is pretty great stuff. Vegetation plants with seed fruit trees with fruit after their kind with full of seeds. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess if

we think garden in terms of cultivated by a person, but this is sort of like imagining all of the flourishing life and fruit trees that reproduce through fruit and seed as being God's garden, as it were. Well, this feels like yeah, like an uncultivated garden where when we get into Genesis chapter 2 verse 4 and on, we get it feels more cultivated. It does. So let's look at that story. I just wanted to call out the images of out of the waters. Yeah, out of the waters. The dry land bursting with plant life by means of God's spirit. Yeah. All connected. So the Genesis 2, verse 4, a new narrative unit begins that compliments the seven-day creation narrative,

but it begins in a different way. So it says Genesis 2, verse 4. These are the... Genialities. This is my translation. These are the birthings of the skies in the land when they were created. In the day of Yahweh, Elohim making the land in the skies. And they're going to get a whole description of the pre-created land as it were. And no shrub of the field was yet in the land.

No plant of the field had yet sprouted. For Yahweh Elohim had not sent rain upon the land. So it's the opposite of how the seven-day narrative begins, which is of too much water and dark. Here we have a dry land, no plants. No plants, no water. And there was no human to work the ground. But a stream would go up out from the land and it would water the face of the ground. So in the, you begin with kind of like a problem

sequence, there's no plants, there's no water, there's no humans. And then what God is going to do is just tick off each of those boxes, beginning with the no water problem. So a stream pops up out of the land and water is the face of the ground. So now we've solved the water problem. So a stream pops up out of the land and water is the face of the ground. So now we've solved the water problem. Now we got a bunch of mud. Yeah, yeah. So God provides water in the wilderness, which is a primary first step in God creating.

It's foundational to life. Like none of the life that's gonna happen will come without this water. That's right, yeah. Water of life. The water of life. And the water is instrumental in both the creation of humans and in the sprouting of plants, as we'll see. But first humans, right? Yeah, exactly. So now you've got saturated dirt at his mud, and so Yahweh can form the human of dust from the ground, and he breathed into his nostrils the

breath of life and the human became a living being. So notice you have the similar elements here of water. Here not dark chaos waters but rather water that's been channeled to pop up out of the ground. And life water. Life water. Yeah. But the water by itself can't bring about the kind of life that God purposes for the world.

You need another ingredient, and that is Yahweh's spirit. So here with the word breath, Yah know we're breathing the breath of life. So you get this combination of water and spirit, then you get living being. So that's a little meditation there. You have liquid life in the form of water, then you have spirit life in the form of breath, and then you get the human becomes a living being. Okay. So, the human is the land, soaked with water, given God's breath. Yeah, that's right. So humans are a combination of heaven and earth. That's where.

They're of the dust of the ground. Formed from the dust of the ground. But breathe into them is God's breath. God's breath, heavenly breath. Yeah. So. But there's also the ingredient of water. Yeah. Because it's formed the ground. You need to watery after The dust to become mud so that it can be formed. That word form is the word used to describe of working with clay to mold it. You can't mold dust, but you can mold mud or clay.

So for human, so now we've addressed the human problem. Verse 8, Yahweh Elohim planted a garden in Eden toward the east, and he placed there the human he had formed. Yahweh Elohim caused to sprout from the ground, and then a list of things here. Every tree that's desirable to see and good for eating and the tree of life, also in the middle of the garden and the tree of knowing good and bad. So now we solve the plant problem. And tree doesn't just refer to trees, right? This is eight. Oh yeah, that's right. It can refer to whole variety. Vines and shrubs and anything wooden. Yeah, with a wooden stock. Yeah. So the

problem was no plants, no human, no water, and God solved the problem in the order of provide water, solved the human, and solved the plant problem. But notice how the order goes. He forms the human, the plants a garden, then he puts the human in the garden, and then we're told what is sprouting in the garden, namely every tree that's desirable. So there's this combination of the water, it's like the precondition. It's what makes possible both the making of the human and the sprouting of the water is like the precondition. It's what makes possible both the making of the human

and the sprouting of the garden. The base. Yeah. So the water of life is foundationally necessary for this sprouting of life here on the land. And that, if you have water, you can get plants. But if you have just the water, you don't get image of God human. You need some other element. Water and breath. Water and spirit. Yes. Yeah.

Well, okay. Here it's called breath, but you're saying that's connected to God's spirit. Yes. Yeah. And, yeah, it's interesting. So, like, not like a chemist, but like, I think there's language around, you've got some sort of bass liquid, but there's then when you add some sort of active ingredient,

and that's something new happens. But in this situation, what you need as a bass is water and land together, and then the active ingredient to make a living being. Oh, yeah, it's breath. It's breath. Yeah. So I think the thing to note here in the way this is designed is that what water does for the land to bring about plants is set on analogy for what the spirit does with the watered ground to bring about the human. And even the three lines, verses 7 through 9, here is this about the Hebrew literary design of these verses,

but there's three little units here. Each of them beginning with three things that Yahweh Elohim does, and the opening word of each of these three statements all sound the same in Hebrew. So Yahweh Elohim formed the human. The first word is Vajitzir to form. Yahweh Elohim planted a garden. Vajitah is planted. Yahweh Elohim caused to sprout from the ground. Vajitsmak. So Vajitsir, V sprout from the ground, Vayitsmak. So Vayitsur, Vayita, Vayitsmak. And then there's other things in here that

repeated words that kind of match it together. So the human life that emerges from the ground is set on analogy to the plants that come up out of the ground. And the humans are the result of water and spirit. The plants are the result of water. So the way that water works and brings life is set on analogy to the way that water and spirit bring life. Does that make any sense? Yeah, we've talked about before how in the biblical imagination, ancient imagination, animals and humans. We're just talking about humans here, but animals and humans are fundamentally different than plants in terms of their types of life. That's right.

The word living creature, living being, is not applied to plants. Plants have, they are alive, and they have seed, which makes them like part of this like generative, multiplying life that God creates, and they need water. But then there's this category of living creatures. Yeah, animate. Yeah, animate creatures. Yeah. And we're here, we're just talking about humans, but it. It's also the case that all animals have the breath of God, right? Mm-hmm. Yes, that's exactly right. We are all animated humans in any creature through the life-giving, ruach energy. That's right. Of God. Yeah, I had a great place to go. Let's go meditate on Psalm 104 and take a long walk. And think about the role of God's spirit in that poem and the spirit that's blowing

around in creation, blowing the trees is the spirit that animates humans. This is the spirit that animates animals. And it's's got spirit. So there's also a theme of talking about people like trees. Yes, that's right. Yeah. It's great, like it's talking about that. So just kind of enter this mindset is to go like as as a whatever I am. This thing that I am. I'm like a tree. I come from the land and I'm watered. Yeah. And I could be like a healthy tree planted by stream or I could be

kind of a withered tree. And so in some way I'm kind of like a tree, but I'm not merely a tree. Trees just have the water of life from the land. I'm something even more. There's another ingredient that has caused me to be a living being, a creature, which is God's spirit. And so when I think about life, what it means to be alive, I think about the water of life,

that makes me kind of like the trees, but then I think of also the spirit of God, which makes me into a living nephesh. Yeah, nephesh, a living creature. A living creature. Yeah. And maybe to say where you're taking us in this is to say, if I'm going to be marveling in that, I'm also marveling in like, man,

I've got this substance called oil, and it's this pretty amazing stuff. It makes food amazing. It brings life to me when I eat it. It restores my skin. It restores my skin. So from flaky to shiny and smooth. Yeah. Yeah. And there's so the doors, my skin. I'm going to go from the lakes, to the shiny and smooth. Yeah.

Yeah. And there's so much life and what is oil? It's like water. Comes from fruit. Yeah. It comes from the fruit of trees, the seed of trees. And it's like, it's liquid like water, but it's infused with so much more life than merely water.

And so then my imagination is thinking like, okay, what is the life that's infused in this oil? And it just makes me just meditate and think of like, what's the life infused in me? That makes me alive. And those two ideas are now like, mm, so good. Connected in them.

I'm so compelled by what you're saying. Yeah. Have I convinced you Tim? Have I made the point? Yeah, that's totally right. So what water does to the ground, bringing about life, is like what spirit does to the lifeless ground to make it human. And so water and spirit, liquid and spirit become joined here in terms of they both play analogous roles in bringing about life to different types of creatures. So going from here, there's two paths you

can track down that I think help us understand anointing oil. One is that throughout the rest of the story of the Bible, when God wants to talk about a new era or a new time when He will bring about the restoration of creation and bring new life to the land, what you often get are images of Yahweh providing water in the wilderness. And what you'll start to see, especially in the prophets, is they talk about a new era of God's spirit coming, and they always describe the spirit as a liquid. So, for example, Isaiah chapter 44, verse two, this is what the Lord says,

the one who made you and formed you. This is God speaking to exiled Israel to be the prophet. So this is what God says, who made you and formed you. It's the same word as Genesis two. Correct. Formed you from the womb, who and formed you. It's the same word as Genesis 2. Okay. Formed you from the womb who will help you. Don't be afraid, Jacob, my servant. For I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. You're like, oh yeah. Genesis 2. Yeah. Yahweh does that kind of thing.

That's how like this all started. Yeah, totally. Yeah, that's how humans were formed. So I pour out water on the thirsty land, streams on the dry ground, I will pour out my spirit on your seed, your offspring, and pour out my blessing on your descendants. They will spring up among a grass like poplars by streams of water. Yeah, okay.

It's cool, like this idea of blessing now being thrown in the mix is something we haven't really talked specifically about, which is the life of the Garden of Eden, the life of abundance. That's right, yes. And where life can multiply. And so oil, as a symbol symbol makes sense to represent abundance. Abundance. It's compressed life. Yes. Yeah, exactly right. And here, now, no, oil isn't mentioned here.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, just liquid. So I'll pour out water on the desert ground. I'll pour out my spirit on your descendants. The assumption is you all and your descendants are like a dry lifeless ground. He says to the people in exile to Babylon, but there's an era coming just like when God looked upon that Baron Desert wasteland in the beginning of the Eden story when he will bring about a new creation and a new humanity and And it will begin with

the pouring of water and the pouring out of the Spirit. And those are joined images. So at a basic point, you're saying, isn't it cool to see how receiving God's Spirit is turned into a liquid metaphor? Yeah. There's a connection between what's going on with the living water, but God's spirit coming down and with the living water Creating living Neffesh. Yeah, and this idea of now we can think of God's spirit like a liquid. That's right Yeah, can I pause and ask? There's kind of fundamentally different types of getting God's spirit It feels like we're talking about because God breathing in the nostrils and

every creature being full of the breath of God feels like this kind of universal, like we all are animated by God. Yeah, yeah. In him, we move in a little bit of that. That's the Garden of Eden sense. Yeah. Yeah. But it's also the sense now, right?

Yeah. The book of the inside of the garden would say, I still am animated by God's rule. Yes. And we take it, my life is gone. I go down to the ground. That is how God's spirit is talked about all over the Hebrew Bible and Job, Gilles Aste is in the Psalms. God's breath is in my nostrils.

Job says. There's another way the spirit is talked about like when it descends on David, when he's anointed. Yes, exactly. Right? When he's anointed. Because David's alive, he has the Spirit of God in his nostrils.

But then the Spirit of God comes down again. We're talking about Spirit descending on you in two different ways. Yeah, it's like there is life one pointo, which is just... Pretty great. Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. Yeah, totally. But... Having God's breath in you?

There is another level, life two pointo, that is described by Isaiah. He's talking to a group of people who have the breath of God and their nostrils in Isaiah 44. They're alive, but they're also dead as it were, because they're cut off from the land of promise and blessing. They believe they're cut off from God's presence, because they violated the covenant and they're living in the land of dust and death. So they're cut off from God's presence because they violated the covenant and they're living in the land of dust and death. So they're alive but dead. In other words, you can be alive in one sense, but if you're outside of Eden, you're... Yeah.

On the day you eat of this fruit, you will die. You will die. And then the day they eat of the forbidden fruit, they... They're still alive. They are exiled. but they're exiled. They're alive, but in the land of dust and death. And so, if God is going to restore humanity to the abundant life of Eden and to eternal life, that becomes what this language of a new pouring of water and a new pouring of

spirit, to be connected to the life of heaven. And so, here Isaiah is hoping that Israel will once again be recreated as it were into a new humanity through water and spirit. And that's what he's hoping for here. So that's for a whole group of people. But then you start to see that all of these anointed figures, like an Aaron, or like that spot, Jacob anointed, or like King David. King David is the first person who had said

when he got the oil poured on his head, the spirit of the Lord came on him, water and spirit. Now he's already alive. He's already got the breath of the Lord came on him, water and spirit. Now, he's already alive. He's already got the breath of God in his nostrils. So all of a sudden, there's moments when through liquid and spirit, a person, a place is marked as a special portal between heaven and earth to bring about that reunion of heaven and earth in some way. And I think that's where all of a sudden,

and all these themes come crashing together of the liquid life and the spirit are joined images. And that's what anointing means in the Bible. Which, if my mind is just a bundle of associated images now. Right. When you were explaining it earlier, it actually made more sense to me than it made in my head. Oh, cool. Great.

So what's significant, I guess you can go from here, is a question that you've asked. Well, first of all, are the pieces, does it tie together into coherent idea, liquid, and spirit in the Garden of Eden story, or how God brings about life? But... And what is a way to represent that liquid and spirit together? Yeah, oil. Oil is water. Fregrant. But it's infused with more life than just merely being water.

Compressed life. Compressed life. Compressed life. So it's represents the idea of God's spirit, infused in water. And so when we annoy someone with oil, it's a symbol saying, we want God's divine breath in a new way. And it's needed particularly for people who are going to stand in the gap. Yeah. Be the bridge between heaven and earth. They need that. Yeah.

And so, but then we are looking at Isaiah 44 and there's this image of God's spirit being poured on in a new way, all of the people. Not just the anointed one, but all of the seed. Yeah, exactly. And in fact, when Joel, the prophet Joel, picks up this promise famously in Joel chapter 2, he talks about a future day when chapter 2 verse 28, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all humanity, and all your sons and daughters will prophesy.

They'll become bridges for God's heavenly word to be spoken here on earth. And your old men will dream dreams, like Jacob, and see visions, and dreams and visions are about being on earth. But be connected to the divine. Yet your imagination becomes open to the life and love and the message of heaven. And even on male and female slaves,

I'll pour out my spirit. So the whole human family is on the docket for getting life 2.0 that's described as liquid life. And by life 2.0, you just mean life restored in a way because re-unified with heaven. Because what happened is we had life outside the garden is death, but we still have the breath of God in our nostrils. But we still have some life. Yeah, that's true. How do we get back to full life? Yeah. It's almost like we went from 1.0 to like a beta version. Oh, that's true. Actually, that's a better way. And we need to get back.

Yeah, yeah. Since we're using programming. Yeah, language metaphor. Yeah. Yeah. So this is why the images of the anointing oil as a liquid that's connected with the coming of God's spirit on people and places that are portals between heaven and earth. This is all one united set of ideas. So with all those things tied together, hopefully, in our minds, we can go forward and explore a couple other moments in the biblical story where anointing comes up. One will be to talk about the role of kings, because the anointed kings becomes especially significant with the story of David. And then in the Isaiah scroll, we just looked at one, but the idea of an anointed one and an anointed people plays a

huge role in the future pointing hope of the storyline in the Bible. And then all that gets drawn upon by Jesus and the apostles as we go on from there. But for now, we should just meditate on liquid life and go make some guacamole. We're in the state for the first time. Whose phone is this? Ready? Alright, we're recording. Okay.

Hey everyone. Hi. Hi. Hi. I got a bunch of kids here. How old are you guys? 11. 11.

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My favorite is probably the Tree of Life video. I really like the Tree of Life video too. Shema. Shema. I like the gap in one. Hmm, a gap in one. That's a good one. Well, we're going to read the outro, so you guys just repeat after me. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus.

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