Shalom!

 

Shemot/Exodus 27:20 "And you shall command the children of Israel that they bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to cause the lamp to burn continually.

 

Note from the above verse that ALL of Israel is commanded to bring the pure, pressed oil for the light of the menorah. This duty does not belong to just a select group of people. Believers in Yeshua who are grafted into the olive tree of Israel will also be responsible for oil from the olives. But what does that really look like? This week, more notes from Mr. William Bullock (www.regionschristiancenter.org):

 

"The olive tree, not the vine, is the first fruit tree mentioned in Torah aside from the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which were found in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 8:11, the narrative of Torah reveals that the olive tree was the first form of plant life that the inhabitants of the Ark encountered after the Great Flood. Remember Noach set loose a dove from the window of the ark, and in the evening the dove returned bearing something in her beak - the freshly plucked leaf of an olive tree.

 

The olive tree, therefore became for all time a sign of new life, new hope, and a new order rising from the debris of a purging judgment. To be without oil (like the 5 foolish virgins), means to claim to be living a new life and walking in new hope without continually producing fruit consistent with that new life and hope.

 

The first reference in Torah to "oil" is found in Genesis 28:18 when Ya'acov poured oil on the stone which his head had laid as he was dreaming a dream. From this beginning the act of anointing something or someone with oil has become synonymous with consecrating/setting apart that thing or person unto the service and use of the Holy One. Later, other kings were consecrated through the act of being anointed with oil. Of course the title "Messiah" is believed to refer specifically to one set apart to the Holy One through an oil anointing.

 

The oil we are talking about each person being commanded to bring is not, however, oil to be used for anointing but oil to be used for burning and shining. In this regard, it should be kept in mind that the oil of an olive is not combustible in the way a fuel like gasoline is. With an olive oil lamp, therefore, what burns and gives off light is not the liquid oil itself but is instead vaporized molecules of the liquid/oil which are continually drawn to and released by the heat at the end of a flaming wick. In vapor form olive oil molecules have a lower combustion point - lower, in fact, than the combustion point of the wick material. This means that the vapors of olive oil burn before the wick does, and the burning of those produces significantly more light, for a much longer period of time, than the burning of the wick by itself would.

 

The oil which each person who has been redeemed by the Holy One is to produce and bring forth is similarly drawn forth supernaturally by Divine Fires of testing and purification. We are drawn into those fires by the Holy One on purpose, in order that what will be released by us here on earth is not recognizable as "our" fruit, which would result in us receiving glory, but is instead Divine Light, which results in HIM receiving glory.

 

YHWH makes it clear that everyone in the Redeemed Community of Israel is expected to participate in His plan for lighting the world. Not a single individual is ever to allow himself or herself to be without oil for the lamp - like one of the "foolish virgins" of Yeshua's parable. Every son and daughter of the Covenant is to be continually engaged, every day of our lives, in the enterprise of growing, harvesting, pressing, consecrating, and sharing oil. As the olive is the sign of new life and new hope, the production of oil from the olive is the sign of submission to the life-mission and the light-bearing function for which He redeemed us and gave us new life and new hope.

 

So...the One who said 'Yehi Ohr' (Light, Be!) on the first day of the Creation Week has ordained another kind of lighting. It will come from a 7-branched menorah which every single person in covenant with Him is to continuously be about the business of supplying absolutely pure, hand-beaten olive oil.

 

In this week's reading, YHWH assigns to every single member of Israel the responsibility to provide oil for the light. This command provides an interesting backdrop for Yeshua's parable of the 10 virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). Of what did the 'wise' bridesmaids - but not the 'foolish' bridesmaids - have an ample supply? You guessed it - it was oil for the light! (The same phrase of Shemot/Exodus 27:20!) Trials and tribulations lead to the production of the special oil that makes us an effective light source.

 

One more thing about the oil. What was brought was to be 'pure' oil, having no foreign substance or sediment in it. That means the olives would have to be pressed, not crushed. It is believed that for the menorah, the olives were hand pressed and it was the first drops of oil that was collected for the lighting of the menorah. Afterwards the olives could be crushed and the remaining oil used for meal-offerings. Today's olives are pressed, crushed, and slowly churned mechanically. It produces a certain amount of sediment. Spiritually speaking, if we do not respond to all things that happen in our lives with love and obedience to our Master, then our oil will not be pure. And the light will not be as bright.

 

1 John 3:3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

 

No one was pressed and squeezed as much as Yeshua was on the Mount of Olives. There, we are given this picture of Him:

Luke 22:44 And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Shabbat Shalom!

Ardelle