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Ever wonder why “Christ” means “Anointed One”? In this episode, Jimmy Akin dives deep into the ancient practice of anointing—from painting houses and oiling shields to crafting sacred perfume for priests and kings. He reveals how “Messiah” and “Christ” both mean “Anointed One,” why there were many messiahs in Israel’s history (even a Gentile king!), and makes the Bible’s culture come alive with relatable modern twists. You’ll see Jesus in a whole new light! Tune in now!
TRANSCRIPT:
Coming Up
People commonly know that the term “Christ” means “Anointed One.”
But what is anointing . . . and why would someone want to do it?
Let’s get into it!
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Howdy, folks!
We’re in our second year of the podcast now, and you can help me keep making this podcast for years to come—and get early access to new episodes—by going to Patreon.com/JimmyAkinPodcast
What Is Anointing?
In Hebrew, the term for Anoint is Mashakh, and it refers to spreading a liquid over something.
For example, it can refer to painting a house.
Jeremiah 22:14 uses this term when it speaks of upper-class people in Judah painting their houses red. It pronounces woe on a wicked homeowner
Jeremiah 22:14
who says, “I will build myself a great house with spacious upper rooms,”
and cuts out windows for it, paneling it with cedar, and painting it with vermilion [red].
The word for painting in this passage is mashakh, so we have the idea of anointing or painting your house with red paint.
The term mashakh also can be used for spreading oil on wafers.
Exodus 29:2 refers to unleavened wafers spread with oil—just like chefs today brush oil or butter over the tops of bread to improve the texture of the baked good’s surface.
Thus the instructions for the ceremony to consecrate a priest to God’s service say:
Exodus 29:1-2
Take one young bull and two rams without blemish, and unleavened bread, unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers spread with oil.
In this passage, the word for spread is also mashakh, so you could also anoint or spread wafers with oil.
And people would anoint leather shields as well.
Isaiah 21:5 tells princes to oil their shields to keep them flexible and make them more useful in battle. It says:
Isaiah 21:5
Arise, O princes, oil the shield!
And—as you’ve guessed the verb oil in this passage is again mashakh.
So, the term mashakh could refer to anointing a bunch of things—and this included people.
Anointing was a normal part of their personal care.
You could anoint yourself, to make yourself presentable.
In Ruth 3:3, Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi is giving her advice about how to make herself presentable for Boaz, and she tells her,
Ruth 3:3
Wash therefore and anoint yourself and put on your best clothes.
You also might anoint someone else as part of welcoming them to your home.
In Luke 7:45-46, Jesus tells his host—Simon the Pharisee—that Simon did not greet him with a kiss or anoint his head with oil, making him a bad host.
Comparing him to the sinful woman who was also there, Jesus tells Simon:
Luke 7:45-46
You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet.
You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.
Anointing oil was so essential to ordinary personal care that a lack of it was regarded as a curse from God.
In Deuteronomy 28:40, God warns the Israelites of what will happen if they disobey and tells them:
Deuteronomy 28:40
You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off.”
So, anointing was a very important part of ancient Near Eastern culture—including among the Israelites.
And you might wonder: Why?
Anointing Yourself?
In most of the cases we’ve been discussing, the oil used for anointing was olive oil.
Today, olive oil is in every grocery store. You probably have olive oil in your kitchen, and you’ve probably never been tempted to pour it on yourself.
That would make you all greasy, and it would make you smell like olive oil—so it wouldn’t seem like an attractive thing to do.
Yet people in ancient Israel regarded anointing as a good and pleasant thing.
For example, Psalm 132 states:
Psalm 132:1-2
Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!
It is like the precious oil upon the head, running down upon the beard,
upon the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!
From this we can see that anointing was regarded as a very pleasant thing.
To us, the idea of pouring oil over our heads and having it run down our faces and beards and on our collars would seem like a greasy mess.
I mean, I would never want to take a bottle of olive oil and dump it out on my head and have it run down on my beard and especially not my collar.
I mean, I do sometimes use beard oil or beard balm, but getting it on my clothes? No way!
Those have to be washed! Some of them have to be dry cleaned!
I guess maybe this was a lesser deal for men in the ancient world, since washing the clothes was women’s work.
And I guess you could just expect the women in your household to take your oily robes down to the river and beat them on a rock until they were clean-ish.
But I gotta do my own laundry! And if I want a professional dry-cleaning job, I’ve got to drive down and back and pay someone to do that for me!
So, no; no pouring oil over my head and onto my clothes for me.
But in the Ancient Near East, things were different, and this was seen as pleasant.
In the first place, they didn’t have things like skin moisturizers or lip balm, so olive oil served that purpose.
I don’t use moisturizer or lip balm myself, but I know a lot of people today do—and in the ancient world olive oil would soothe your skin and make it softer.
Also, they didn’t have air conditioning—something I do use, being from the South—and in the summer it could get hot in Israel—into the 80s and 90s Fahrenheit.
There was also comparatively little rainfall, so—unless you lived right next to a lake or river—you needed to save the water you had.
People did wash their feet and their hands, but they didn’t always take baths.
Except when they needed to get rid of a ritual impurity, most people bathed weekly—or even monthly—so people could get a little bit . . . smelly.
Sacred Anointing Oil
And anointing helped with that, because the oils they used were often scented, so they functioned like perfume or cologne.
When you got anointed with oil, it would soothe your skin and smell good.
That’s what made it attractive to them.
There was even a special kind of anointing oil that they used for sacred functions, and Exodus 30 tells how to make it.
God says to Moses:
Exodus 30:23-25
Take the finest spices:
- of liquid myrrh five hundred shekels,
- and of sweet-smelling cinnamon half as much, that is, two hundred and fifty,
- and of aromatic cane two hundred and fifty,
- and of cassia five hundred, according to the shekel of the sanctuary,
- and of olive oil a hin;
and you shall make of these a sacred anointing oil blended as by the perfumer; a holy anointing oil it shall be.
This holy anointing oil had a base that was olive oil.
The recipe says to use a hin of olive oil, which was around a gallon.
But you didn’t stop with just the olive oil.
You also added various aromatic substances to it to give it a distinctive smell.
The first of these was 500 shekels—or 200 dry ounces—of liquid myrrh.
Myrrh is a sweet-smelling tree sap or resin that historically has been used for perfumes and incense.
To that you’d add another 500 shekels—or 200 dry ounces—of cassia, which was a spice like cinnamon.
You’d also add 250 shekels—or 100 dry ounces—of aromatic cinnamon.
You’d add another 250 shekels—or 100 dry ounces—of aromatic cane, which was a kind of spicy-smelling reed.
And you’d blend all these things together—like a perfumer would do—to get the sacred anointing oil for the sanctuary.
Because this particular blend of oil was sacred, you couldn’t use it for just anything.
And Exodus forbids anyone from making it or for using it for unauthorized purposes, saying that such a person must be cut off from his people.
So, the recipe for this oil was protected by a form of early intellectual property law.
The Israelite sanctuary essentially had a patent on this formula, so nobody else was supposed to make it.
And—if you’re a perfumer in the audience—that patent has expired since the ritual commands of the Mosaic Law are no longer binding on anybody, and they were never binding on Gentiles.
So if you want to whip up some of the sacred oil to see what it smelled like, go right ahead! I’ve just given you the recipe!
And if you do make some, let me know how it turned out in the comments—and send me a note, because I’d like to get some. I’m curious, too.
In ancient Israel, you’d have to go to the temple to learn how it smelled. You couldn’t mix it at home.
However, other anointing oils also were scented—just not the same way as the sanctuary oil—so you could still anoint yourself with something that smelled really good.
Now, you may be wondering: What did they use the sanctuary oil for? What did they anoint with it?
Among the things they anointed with it were the sanctuary and all of its furnishings. Exodus states:
Exodus 30:26-29
You shall anoint with it the tent of meeting and the ark of the covenant and the table and all its utensils and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils and the laver and its base; you shall consecrate them, that they may be most holy.
So, they would use the sacred anointing oil to consecrate these objects for liturgical use in the worship of the Lord.
But they also used the oil on people.
Anointed People
Some of the people who were anointed with the sacred oil used at the temple included the priests. Exodus 30 states:
Exodus 30:30-32
And you shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests.
And you shall say to the sons of Israel, “This shall be my holy anointing oil throughout your generations. It shall not be poured upon the bodies of ordinary men.”
So priests were a kind of men that had been specially anointed to consecrate them to God’s service.
Since the Hebrew word for anointing is Mashakh, that meant an individual priest was a -> Mashiakh—a person who had been anointed, or an anointed one.
Later, when Israelites began speaking Aramaic, the equivalent word in that language was Mshikha.
And later still, when they began to speak Greek, they used the equivalent Greek term Khristos.
So, they had these three terms—mashiakh, mshikha, and khristos—each of which meant a person who had been anointed.
We bring the Hebrew word Mashiakh and its Aramaic equivalent Mshikha into English as Messiah.
And we bring the Greek Khristos into English as Christ.
But they all just meant Anointed Person or Anointed One.
Many Messiahs?
As you can see from the example of Aaron and his sons, there wasn’t just one anointed person in ancient Israel.
There were many priests, and each one of them had been anointed and consecrated to God, so there were many individuals who could be described as a mashiakh or messiah.
And it wasn’t just priests.
We also have a reference to the prophet Elisha being anointed.
In 1 Kings 19:16, God tells the prophet Elijah to anoint Elisha as his successor. God says:
1 Kings 19:16
And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place.
We also see the patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—being referred to as anointed ones or messiahs. For example, Psalm 105 says:
Psalm 105:8-10, 14-15
[The Lord] is mindful of his covenant forever,
of the word that he commanded for a thousand generations,
the covenant which he made with Abraham,
his sworn promise to Isaac,
which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute. . . .
He allowed no one to oppress them;
he rebuked kings on their account,
saying, “Touch not my anointed ones,
do my prophets no harm.”
This anointing was likely spiritual—rather than a literal, ceremonial anointing like priests and prophets received.
But the patriarchs are referred to as anointed ones—or messiahs—possibly because they were regarded as prophets.
Genesis 20:7
Now then restore [Abraham’s] wife; for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you shall live.
For example, Genesis 20:7 describes Abraham as a prophet.
So, in addition to priests, it appears that prophets and patriarchs also counted as anointed ones.
But there is another category of people who were consecrated to God’s service by anointing—kings.
For example, we see this with Israel’s very first king, when the prophet Samuel anoints Saul:
1 Samuel 10:1
Then Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it on his head, and kissed him and said,
“Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the Lord, and you will save them from the hand of their enemies round about. And this shall be the sign to you that the Lord has anointed you to be prince over his heritage.”
So, even though Samuel was the human instrument that performed the anointing, God himself was regarded as having anointed Saul.
Samuel tells him, “Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people?”
And thus, Israel’s kings came to be referred to as “the Lord’s anointed” or “the Lord’s messiah.”
We see an example of that later on, when the future king David is on the run from King Saul.
King Saul goes into a cave to . . . uh . . . relieve himself. What he doesn’t know is that David and his men are already deep inside the cave.
So while Saul is . . . uh . . . relieving himself, David has it in his power to sneak up and kill Saul.
But David refuses to do so, saying:
1 Samuel 24:6
The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed, to put forth my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord’s anointed.
So Israelite kings—including bad ones like Saul—were still specially consecrated to God’s service by their anointing and thus were referred to as “the Lord’s anointed” or “the Lord’s messiah.”
Later, when he became king, David also assumed the status of the Lord’s anointed, and so did his son Solomon and the future kings of the house of David.
After Solomon’s time, the kingdom split in two, with the ten northern tribes seceding from the control of Judah in the south.
Yes, in ancient Israel, the north seceded from the south. Politics have always been turned around in the Middle East.
But it was understood at the time that the northern kings also—not just the southern kings—had been anointed by God.
We see this in the case of the tenth king of northern Israel—a man named Jehu.
Elijah the prophet sent one of his colleagues to anoint Jehu as king, telling him:
2 Kings 9:3
Take the flask of oil, and pour it on his head, and say, “Thus says the Lord, I anoint you king over Israel.”
So, the Lord not only had anointed kings in Judah but in Israel as well.
Gentile Messiahs?
And you didn’t even have to be of Israelite ancestry to be anointed of the Lord.
In Isaiah 45:1, God refers to Cyrus the Great of Persia as his anointed, saying:
Isaiah 45:1
Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped,
to subdue nations before him and uncover the loins of kings,
to open doors before him that gates may not be closed.
Even though he was a non-Israelite, Cyrus the Great ended the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people. He let them go back to their land and authorized the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple.
And so, he was regarded as a righteous king in that regard, and he was one of the Lord’s anointed ones or messiahs.
Conclusion
So, in conclusion, we’ve seen that anointing was a popular custom in the Ancient Near East—including in the nation of Israel
The Hebrew word for anointing—mashakh—means to spread a liquid over something, and all kinds of things were anointed.
You might anoint a house with paint—or paint it, as we would say.
You might brush olive oil on wafers—just as cooks today often brush oil on baked goods.
You might anoint a leather shield with oil—to keep it flexible for use in battle.
And you might anoint a person to soothe their skin and make them smell good.
All of these were common, everyday types of anointing.
But you also could anoint something to consecrate it to God’s service.
That’s what they did at the Israelite sanctuary—which was originally the tabernacle and later the temple.
Exodus 30 contains a recipe for a sacred anointing oil that—at the time—could only be used at the sanctuary.
And it was used to consecrate the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, and other liturgical objects to God’s service.
It was also used to consecrate the priests at the temple, and either that oil or another was also used to anoint prophets and kings.
Since there were many priests and prophets at one time—and even two of God’s anointed kings, between the houses of Israel and Judah—there were many messiahs in ancient Israel.
Even many messiahs at one time.
And you didn’t even have to be an Israelite to be a messiah, as the case of Cyrus the Great shows.
But over time, the prophets began to speak about a coming figure who would be greater than all of them—not just a messiah, but the Messiah.
That’s something we’ll discuss in future episodes, but in the meantime, I want to let you know about my new book, Evidence for Christ: How We Know That Jesus Is the Messiah.
Who was this man named Jesus? A prophet, maybe—or maybe a fraud? Some say he was only a “wise teacher” whose followers later deified him. Still others think his very existence is a myth.
For Christians, of course, he is the Messiah: the one sent by God to fulfill Jewish prophecy and save the world from sin and death.
In Evidence for Christ, I present a full array of reasons to believe that Jesus is truly the Messiah, carefully building a step-by-step case that is detailed and easy to follow.
In it, you’ll see:
- What it means to be the Messiah, according to Jewish tradition;
- The evidence affirming Jesus as a real historical person;
- The mosaic of messianic predictions in Scripture and Jewish literature;
- And how the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and works—especially his resurrection from the dead—validate his messianic identity
All of this pointing to the reality of Jesus’ messiahship—and the truth of the Christian faith!
I hope you’ll get a copy, and be sure and let me know in the comments if you found it helpful.
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God bless you always!