To the Israelites in the Desert the anticipation of the "corn and wine and oil" of Canaan was always present, and throughout their history there are abundant evidences of how they prized it.
The prescription for the "holy anointing oil" given in Exodus, xxx, 23, is very remarkable. It was to be compounded of the following ingredients:—
Flowing myrrh 500 shekels.
Sweet cinnamon 250 "
Sweet calamus 250 "
Cassia (or costus) 500 "
Olive oil One hin.
It is the Revised Version which gives "flowing myrrh," apparently the gum which exudes spontaneously. The Authorised Version reads "pure myrrh." The Revised Version also suggests costus in the margin as an alternative to cassia. This oil was to be kept very sacred. Any one who should compound any oil like it was to be cut off from his people.
A hin was a measure equivalent to about 5-1/2 of our quarts. The shekel was nearly 15 lbs., and some of the Rabbis insist that the "shekel of the sanctuary" was twice the weight of the ordinary shekel. At the lowest reckoning, less than 6 quarts of oil were to take up the extract from nearly 90 lbs. of solid substance. It will be seen on reference that the shekel weights are not definitely stated, but the verses can hardly be otherwise read. Some critics have suggested that so many shekels' worth is intended, but this reading under the circumstances is almost inadmissible. Maimonides, a great Jewish authority, says the method was to boil the spices and gum in water until their odours were extracted as fully as possible, and then to boil the water and the oil together until the former was entirely
