Exodus 27:20

Offering the Oil

27:20 “You are to command the Israelites that they bring ¹  to you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, so that the lamps ²  will burn ³  regularly. ⁴ 

Exodus 30:34

30:34 The Lord said to Moses: “Take ⁵  spices, gum resin, ⁶  onycha, ⁷  galbanum, ⁸  and pure frankincense ⁹  of equal amounts ¹⁰ 

[27:20]  ¹ 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.

[27:20]  ² tn Heb “lamp,” which must be a collective singular here.

[27:20]  ³ 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).

[27:20]  ⁴ 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.

[30:34]  ⁵ 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.

[30:34]  ⁶ sn This is from a word that means “to drip”; the spice is a balsam that drips from a resinous tree.

[30:34]  ⁷ 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.

[30:34]  ⁸ sn This is a gum from plants of the genus Ferula; it has an unpleasant odor, but when mixed with others is pleasant.

[30:34]  ⁹ 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).

[30:34]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “of each part there will be an equal part.”