Jerusalem of Gold
The Oil of Miracles
Five years ago the LORD told me to study the word "Oil" in the Hebrew Scriptures. In the English Bible there is only one word for Oil. But in Hebrew, there are three:
1) Shemen
2) Yitzhar
3) Meshach
1) Shemen: This is where the Latin word for 'seed' gets its name - semen. In Hebrew this word for "oil" therefore has a hidden meaning connected to: "planting, birth, multiplication". But, as in any seed, there must be death before life, hiddenness before coming out into the light.
Shemen is used to mean one type of oil - olive oil, including the olive, olive tree and its products. It is this word in the Hebrew which is used when the dove returns to Noah's Ark with an "olive" (shemen) branch. The LORD is making it clear that He will re-seed, or re-multiply the earth after the flood; by the use of the Hebraic meaning of the very branch the dove brought back to the tiny remnant of mankind.
Shemen is also used for medicine. In Ezekiel the leaves of the olive tree are used for healing (Ezekiel 47.12). Lastly, it is used for both light, and for offerings to worship and honour the LORD.
2) Yitzhar: The second Hebrew word for oil also means "Olive Oil". It also means to "anoint" and is used as a name, which literally means "shining one." If you are anointed with olive oil you will shine.
3) Meshach: The third Hebrew word for oil means: "olive oil" and is used for lamp oil, food and again for offerings to worship and honour the LORD.
All three words only mean Olive Oil. In Leviticus 24. 1-4: "The LORD said to Moshe, “Command the Israelites to bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light so that the lamps may be kept burning continually (the seven lamps of the Jewish Temple Menorah). Outside the curtain that shields the ark of the covenant law in the tent of meeting, Aaron is to tend the lamps before the LORD from evening till morning, continually. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. The lamps on the pure gold lampstand (temple menorah) before the LORD must be tended continually."
These verses are describing the Eternal Flame in the First Temple. So God's Eternal Light in the Temple was and is made from pure pressed olives.
Gethsemane, the garden where Jesus/Yeshua struggled in prayer before His sacrificial death, means: "Olive Press". So the Messiah was literally pressed in the pressure of obedience. When you press an olive in an olive press, olive oil comes out. When Yeshua was 'pressed' in His Father's Olive Press (The Garden of Gethsemane) blood came out the pores of His skin. So the Messiah's Oil is His Blood, poured out for us.
Going back the third Hebrew word for Oil above - Meshach. It is only used twice in the Old Testament. Once in Ezra 6.9 and once in Ezra 7.22. Both refer to the Second Temple. Meshach shares the same Hebrew root as a word so similar to it you can barely tell them apart: Mashach. This word also means "anoint." And if you add just one Hebrew letter to the word "mashach" (anoint) you get "Mashiach", which means Messiah - quite literally: "One anointed with olive oil." In the Old Testament it's what you did to every King! This added Hebrew letter is the letter 'yod' which is not only the smallest, but it represents in Jewish thought: "the hand or arm of God, a point of divine energy and humility." So if you add these characteristics to the Hebrew word for "anoint" you get the Hebrew word for "Messiah". Amazing. Jesus/Yeshua is the very example of divine humility and it is one of the easiest characteristics to spot in another true believer.
This word for Messiah - Mashiach - in the Hebrew is also only used twice. Once in Daniel 9.25 and once in Daniel 9.26. These both refer to the, as yet unbuilt, Third Temple.
So the Messiah is hidden in the Hebrew for the Eternal Flame - the Light that burns with Olive Oil - in the First, Second and Third Temples in Jerusalem.
Next, the LORD told me to study when Oil is used:
Anointing a King: 1 Samuel 16.13 "And Samuel took the horn of oil (shemen) and anointed (mashach) him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day and onward." This is like saying in Hebrew that through David the LORD was "seeding the Messiah".
Preparing to meet the King: Esther anointed herself with oil as she prepared to meet the King who would be her future husband. The oil used here is not however olive oil but maybe that is because she was not in Israel but in a different land of Persia. She was in exile.
Anointing the Tabernacle: Exodus 40.9 "And you shall take the oil (shemen) of anointing (mashach) and you shall anoint (mashach) the Tabernacle and all in it... And it shall become holy." This is like saying that the LORD is "seeding the Messiah to make the Tabernacle Holy." In the New Testament it says that we, by trusting in the Messiah, are being made Holy as He 'tabernacles' with us .
Sons of Oil: In the Hebrew, when Zechariah prophesies the two end-time witnesses in Zechariah 4.14, it reads in the English: "“These are the two who are anointed to serve the Lord of all the earth.” But in the original Hebrew it reads: "These are the two bnei ha yitzhar (sons of oil), that stand by the LORD of all the earth."
So we can see that the spirit of witnessing and prophesying in Yeshua is an oil gift. The modern church has sometimes tried to separate the 'anointing' from the person of Yeshua Himself. In the Hebrew that's not possible. To be anointed means to be in Messiah, like Oil is inside an Olive just waiting to be pressed out. If we knew the anointing only comes through the 'pressing process', our tender souls would be given more strength to surrender to the very tough training the LORD sometimes takes us through. This Hebraic understanding can deepen our discernment too. Anyone who claims an 'anointing' without their flesh having endured a 'pressing process' may be operating out of their soul's strength, rather than from the strength of God's spirit. We all do it, we're human. But the oil will stop flowing until we allow ourselves to be 'pressed' by Him.
So Oil in the Hebrew means all of the following: "Olive oil, seed, death before life, worship and honouring the LORD, anointing a King, preparing to meet the King who will be your husband, anointing the Tabernacle to make it holy, healing for the nations now and in heaven, lamp oil, light and the source of witness and prophecy."
The LORD then asked me to study the first time the word Oil is used in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is in Genesis 28 - the well-known account of Jacob's Dream.
"Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed the night there, because the sun had gone down. He took one of the stones there and put it under his head for a pillow. And he had a dream. He saw steps going up from the earth to heaven. He saw the angels of God going up and down these steps. And he saw the Lord standing above them. He said, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham, and the God of Isaac. I will give to you and your children after you the land where you are lying. They will be like the dust of the earth. You will spread out to the west and the east and the north and the south. Good will come to all the families of the earth because of you and your children. See, I am with you. I will care for you everywhere you go. And I will bring you again to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done all the things I promised you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “For sure the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.” He was afraid and said, “This place is so different! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” So Jacob got up early in the morning. He took the stone he had used as a pillow, and set it up as a pillar. He poured oil on the top of it. He gave that place the name Bethel."
The Holy Spirit then showed me the following, verse by verse:
"Then Jacob awoke from his sleep." In the end days the Jewish people will awake from their slumber and see the Rock on Whom they have been sleeping and resting their heads. We believe this Rock is Jesus/Yeshua. The Hebrew word for "stone" - on which Jacob/Ya'akov laid his head - is quite literally made up of the Hebrew words for Father and Son.
If you ask a non-Messianic Jew what this fact means, they will usually say it represents God's desire for us to pass on the knowledge of Him from father to son. This is also one of the reasons why the Jewish people lay a small stone on a grave. It is a moving act of saying "Your memory will be passed down through the generations, we will not forget you."
But, through the Holy Spirit, we can see the even deeper meaning, that in the Stone is hidden the Messiah with the Father: "Therefore, the Lord God says: Look! I’m laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a valuable cornerstone, a sure foundation: the one who trusts won’t tremble." (Isaiah/Yeshayahu 28.16)
"And said, 'Surely the LORD is in this place and I did not know it." Jacob was in an area called Haran which means "Mountain Sanctuary" so he knew the LORD must have been there, with a name like that. So, what didn't he know that he had just 'seen' prophetically when he saw heaven opened?
"And he was afraid and said, 'How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!" Who calls Himself the Gate through which we enter Heaven? (John 10.9) In addition, Jacob/Ya'akov calls this place "awesome." To be in awe means to be in Holy fear and respect of the LORD. The word for "house" here in Hebrew is the same as the word for "home". So 'house of God' means 'home of God.' This speaks of an intimate family place, at the same time as being in Holy awe; the perfect description of our relationship with the One true God through Jesus/Yeshua the Messiah.
"Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it." He anointed the Stone with Oil. As we've seen from the Hebraic understanding of Oil, this is like saying "This Stone is King, the Messiah, the seed but with death before life, the healing now and in heaven, our lamp oil and light. I am preparing to meet a King and, as a tiny tabernacle of His Spirit, am anointed by God to make me holy."
Then, after reading and studying Jacob's dream in Genesis 28, the LORD told me to read forward seven chapters (seven represents completion in the Bible) to Genesis 35. This is what I found:
"Then God said to Jacob, 'Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you." If God told Jacob/Ya'akov to build an alter, then the first stone he uses will be called the Cornerstone. The Messiah is called the Cornerstone in both the Old Testament/Tanakh and the New Testament in Isaiah/Yeshayahu 28.16 and then in Ephesians 2.19-22: "Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit."
I had read this account of Jacob's/Ya'akov's dream many times but never seen all of this Messianic meaning before. It is a prophecy of Jesus/Yeshua and the waking of the Jewish people to recognise the One Anointed with Oil. The waking of His treasured Jewish people to the identity of the Messiah is the very first instance of the LORD's use of the word Oil in the Hebrew Scriptures - this is truly His Oil of Miracles.
May this understanding continue to heal the church of a Greek mindset, which sometimes believes that Jesus/Yeshua is only found in the New Testament. This mistaken belief brings division to our own minds, as well as between the church and the Jewish people, the two halves of God's heart. May the LORD's Oil of Miracles bring us into more Hebraic understanding of Who Jesus/Yeshua is, the Messiah of Israel, hidden in the Hebrew.
