Exodus 27:20

Offering the Oil

27:20 “You are to command the Israelites that they bring to you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, so that the lamps will burn regularly.

Exodus 30:34

30:34 The Lord said to Moses: “Take spices, gum resin, onycha, galbanum, and pure frankincense of equal amounts 10 


tn The form is the imperfect tense with the vav showing a sequence with the first verb: “you will command…that they take.” The verb “take, receive” is used here as before for receiving an offering and bringing it to the sanctuary.

tn Heb “lamp,” which must be a collective singular here.

tn The verb is unusual; it is the Hiphil infinitive construct of עָלָה (’alah), with the sense here of “to set up” to burn, or “to fix on” as in Exod 25:37, or “to kindle” (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 370).

sn The word can mean “continually,” but in this context, as well as in the passages on the sacrifices, “regularly” is better, since each morning things were cleaned and restored.

tn The construction is “take to you,” which could be left in that literal sense, but more likely the suffix is an ethical dative, stressing the subject of the imperative.

sn This is from a word that means “to drip”; the spice is a balsam that drips from a resinous tree.

sn This may be a plant, or it may be from a species of mollusks; it is mentioned in Ugaritic and Akkadian; it gives a pungent odor when burnt.

sn This is a gum from plants of the genus Ferula; it has an unpleasant odor, but when mixed with others is pleasant.

tn The word “spice is repeated here, suggesting that the first three formed half of the ingredient and this spice the other half – but this is conjecture (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 400).

10 tn Heb “of each part there will be an equal part.”