Oholibah (Hastings' Dictionary)

See OHOLAH. OHOLIBAMAH (>3">px ‘tent of the high place’). —1. One of Esan’s wives, Gn 36% 5 14.18.25 (Ὀλιβεμά, ᾿Ελιβέμα, ᾿Ολιβέμα). All the passages where she bears this name belong to R or to a late stratum of P. Elsewhere (Gn 26% P) Esau’s wives have quite different names, and the whole subject of his marriages is wrapped in obscurity (see the Comm. of Dillm. and eines ll.citt.) 2. An Edomite ‘ duke,’ Gn 36 (Ἐλιβεμᾶ:). J. A. SELBIE. OIL (usually 75 shemen ; 23 t.

, when coupled with other products of the field in their unmanufactured state [see Driver on Dt 715], 17s:; in the Aramaic part of Ezr ngo ; LXX and NT Aatov).—One of the most important products of Palestine, mentioned more than 200 times in the Bible. Sometimes it is specifically called ‘olive oil,’ lit. ‘oil of olive,’ shemen zayith, to indicate its source, as Ex 27% 30, Ly 247, or ‘oil olive,’ lit.

‘ olive of oil,’ Dt 8° (zéth shemen), 2K 18% (zéth yizhar); but, even when not so expressed, the material referred to is the product of the olive in all cases but one, viz. Est 2, where oil of myrrh is specially men- tioned. The olive tree and its fruit are elsewhere OIL jescribed (see art. OLIVE, and οἵ. ii. p. 31), and the methods employed in extracting the oil from its fleshy drupes are there given. Several kinds of olives were cultivated in Pales- tine. According to Menahéth, viii.

3, those of Tekoa were the best, those of Ragab the second best. Three other varieties—that of Netophath, that called Saphconi, and that named Bisani—are mentioned in Peah, vii. 1. The last is said to be so called because it is so prolific that it makes all others to be ashamed. Columella, who calls the olive the first of all trees, mentions 10 varieties whose culture he describes at length (de Re Rustica, v. 8, xii. 49-54, and de Arboribus, xvii.)

; and Pliny names 15 kinds, of which the Licinian was the best (xv. 4). Cato (de Re Rustica, 64-69) es the modes in use for purifying the oil, and Palladius (de Re Rustica, i. 20; Mar. viii, Oct. viii, Nov. v) describes the oil cellars and per! particulars in olive culture. For descriptions of the olive varieties now in culti- vation see Barbe, Etudes sur les oliviers; and details of ancient methods of expressing the oil are given in Blumner’s Technologie, i. 318. St.

Paul uses the figure of olive-grafting in Ro 11” in the i sre sense to that referred to by Palladius (de nsitione, xiv., ‘fecundat sterilis pingues, oleaster olivas’). In Geoponica, ix., there is also an account of the culture of the olive, and of the experiments made of grafting olives on vines ; this ἐλαιοστάφυλος and the effect produced on the fruit of the graft is mentioned in an an (Brunek, iii. 231). Different kinds of oil were known in Palestine.

Pure (RV) or beaten (AV) oil is specified in Ex 27% 29% Lv 242, Nu 28° (LXX ἔλαιον ἐξ ἐλαίων ἄτρυγον καθαρόν ; Vulg. oleum purissimum piloque contusum). This is the oil now known in com- merce as virgin oil, extracted by simple pressure without heat. In Zec 4" it is called zahab or golden. The inferior kinds are extracted by more powerful pressure, and the coarse or gorgon oils by the aid of boiling water.

These contain fermentible materials, the lees or Amurca, a watery bitter liquid, whose use, when separated from the oil, as a sheep-dip is mentioned by Virgil (Georg. iii. 448) ; said by Varro to be valuable for killing weeds, and by Cato to be destructive to ants. The coarsest oul is known now in the market as wile denfer ; it is bitter, and soon becomes rancid.

In the present day the cheaper oils are largely adulterated with or replaced by cotton-seed oil, which is, for most purposes, illuminant or dietetic, inferior to pure olive oil ; for the latter surpasses all others in consisting, toa much larger extent, of the glycerides of unsaturated acids, and it can be recognized and distinguished from its adulterations by the rapidity with which it consolidates in the presence of nitrous acid (Brannt, On Oils, i. 318).

For the different kinds of oils in Talmudic times see Menahéth, viii. 4, 5. Oil is coupled with corn and must as an element of national wealth in Dt 7 11" 1917 14% 184 28°), 2 Ch 32%, Neh 5", Hos 25 5, J] 2! With corn, must, and honey in 2 Ch 31° it formed part of the tribute brought to Hezekiah on the restoration of the priesthood. Raisins, figs, wine, and oil were brought by the northern tribes for the feast of rejoicing when David was made king (1 Ch 12”).

ust and oil as the typical produce of the land are mentioned in Neh 10% 13°, Jer 3113, J] 2%; must and oil in Neh 10%, Hag 1"; wine, summer fruits, and oil were gathered by the remnant left in the land after the Captivity (Jer 40"). Sennacherib promised Israel that, if they would submit, he would bring them to a land of oil-olive and honey (2 K 18”), meaning probably some region about Gordywa or 5. Kurdistan; it can- not have been Babylonia, as the oil used there, ac- cording to Strabo (xvi. 1.

14), is that of sesamum, OIL oyl the gingili oil of commerce, extracted from Sesa mum orientale, a Bignoniaceous plant. Fine flour, oil, and honey were the gifts wherewith God fed His unfaithful people (Ezk 16") ; and wine, oil, and fine flour were the types of the luxuries imported by the mystic Babylon (Rev 18). The priestly stores of these commodities are mentioned in 1 C 9” and Ezr 6°; and a similar phrase, victuals, oil, and wine, is used in 2 Ch 11?!

for the stores accumu- lated by Rehoboam in his fortified cities. Prob- ably the great system of underground storehouses, such as those found at Tell Zakariyeh and else- where (PEFSt, 1899), were for this purpose. The royal cellars of oil in David’s day were in charge of Joash (1 Ch 27%). There is a reference to these secret stores of agricultural produce in the petition of the suppliants to Ishmael (Jer 418).

Oil, wine, and barley were supplied as food by Solomon to Hiram’s workpeople (2 Ch 2%). The quantity allowed is given in y.’° as 20,000 baths= about 165,000 gallons (see also Jos. Ant. VII. ii. 9) ; but according to 1 Καὶ 5" the annual gift was 20 cors=about 1640 gallons. Oil was an important Palestinian export.

It was sent to Tyre, as stated not only in the passages cited above, but in Ezk 97}7, In Ezr 3’, meat, drink, and oil are said to have been given to the Tyrian workers occupied in building the second temple. There are allusions to this commerce in Shebiith, vi. 5. The trickery of John of Gischala in manipulating this trade is recited by Josephus (BJ τι. xxi. 2). Much of this oil sent to Tyre was for the Eevpaen market, but Israel sometimes sent the oil directly to Egypt (Hos 12").

Though oil was much used in Egypt, very little was pro- duced there. In Strabo’s time the olive tree was grown only in the Heracleote nome, but even there the oil produced had a disagreeable smell. Else- where in Egypt, he says, there are no olive trees except near Alexandria, but these furnished no oil (Xvi. i. 35). In the Anastasi Papyrus (4. xv. 4) ‘oil from the harbour’ is mentioned. The Egyp- tians called the olive trees dgam (Copt.

Δ ΟΕΙΤῚ) and olive oil δὲ or det, different varieties of which, called pure oil, white, dry, and red, are mentioned in Papyrus Ebers and the Medical Papyrus of Berlin. In the earlier days of Ramses ΠῚ. there was a vigorous attempt to introduce olive culture into Egypt. In the great Harris Papyrus (pl. xxvii.) he says, ‘I made to thee (Tmu) fields of olives in thy town An; I provided many culti- vators to make pure, excellent oil of Egypt to illuminate thy great house’; and in his inventory (pl.

xvii.) there are enumerated 2743 jars of Egyp- tian oil and 1810 of Syrian oil. The uses of oil were numerous. The most ancient and widespread was that of external application (see ANOINTING, in vol. i. p. 101). ΑἸ] the Homeric references to oil are of this nature, and there are none to the use of oil as food. The same is notice- able in the earlier Egyptian literature, from which we learn that the ‘ oiling of the limbs and hair was as important to them as their clothes’ (Erman, Life in ἄπο.

Egypt, 229). Most of the references to the secular use of oil in the Bible are also in the same sense of anexternal application. Such appli- cations were of two kinds: (a) as a cosmetic or part of the toilet, it imparts warmth to the body and protects it against the action of cold (Pliny, xy. 4), And, as the inferior oils used for this purpose are apt to become rancid, there was a special advantage in fresh oil (Ps 9910). (δ) Asa medicinal agent.

Oil is an ingredient in a very large number of the remedies prescribed in the Papyrus Ebers for the most diverse diseases Pliny also speaks of its medicinal use (xv. 4. 7, xxiii. 3.4). Dion Cassius relates that oil and wine were employed both externally and internally 592 OIL OIL TREE er me A τ τσ συσυυ.555.5....υ...-ς, -ς, , , , Ο, “" for the unknown disease which attacked the army of Aelius Gallus in Arabia (liii.

29), as we read of their being used in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10*) ; see also Vegetius, Ars Veter- inaria, v. 14, 23, and Columella, de Re Rustica, vi. 30. 4. Herod the Great was bathed in oil when suffering from the violent abdominal dropsical disease in which he was eaten of worms (Jos. Ant. Xvi. vi. 5, and BJ 1. xxxiii. δ). Cf. Ja 5%, and art. ANOINTING, 4. 2. As part of a ceremony of consecration of kings, high priests (Ex 297-4), Lv 21, Nu 35%), or sacred things (see vol. i.

Ν 101). The effect of this anointing was the complete setting apart for the Divine service Ly 10’, called in Ly 21" the ‘ crown of the anointing oil.’ Talmudic writers say that Saul, Jehu, and Joash were anointed with common oil; but for this there is no authority. For the sacred oil see OINTMENT. 3. As part of the ritual of the burial of the dead oil was used.

This is referred to by our Lord (Mt 26", Mk 14*8, Lk 23%, Jn 19%), In the Rhind Papyrus the use of 206 fn of oil is prescribed for this purpose, and in the funeral Papyrus of {tr the anointing is said to renew the members and to enlarge the heart. The olive tree is described as springing from the eye of Horus, and the oil is said to be ‘ holy and separated for divine things.’ 4. Oil was also used as an illuminating agent in lamps.

Pure olive oil burns without soot, but has the disadvantage of being rapidly consumed. In the usual Jewish lamps half a log=a little less than half a pint, was used in a night (Menahéth, ix. 3). For tabernacle and temple lamps pure oil was used (Ex 27%, Ly 24°), and the charge arene oil in the tabernacle was given to Eleazar (Nu 418). This lamp oil is also mentioned in Ex 25° 35° 14. 38 397.

The wicks were of flax, as alluded to in Is 423, Flaxen wicks were also used in Egypt, but in recent times cotton twisted round straws is often employed (Lane, Mod. Hgyp. i. 201). For the use o oil in NT for this purpose see Mt 25° *- §, For the Sabbath lamps, R. Zarphon says that none but olive oil should be used; but others allow oil of sesame, of ’anuzim (nuts), of radishes, fish oil, ete. (Sabbath, ii. 2). 5.

As food, the use of oil is common in the East, and is referred to by almost all travellers from Ibn Batuta to Robinson and Burckhardt ; but references to its dietetic employment are not numerous in the Bible. Cakes made with oil supported the widow of Zarephath’s household during the famine (1 K 1112). il formed part of the food of the unfaith- ful wife typical of Israel (Ezk 16%). The tithe of oil was to be eaten before the Lord (Dt 1917).

The taste of manna is compared to that of oil (Nu 115). 6. The employment of oil in the meal-offering was a derivative of its use as food.

It formed part of the offering—(1) in the daily sacrifice, Ex 29%; (2) the meal-offering, Lv 7; (3) the consecration- offering for the priests, Ex 29°, Ly 6-21; (4) the consecration-offering of the Levites, Nu 8°; (5) the offering at the expiry of the vow of the Nazirite, Nu 6"; (6) the offering for the purification of the leper, Ly 14; and (7) the special offering at the erection of the tabernacle, Nu 7. No oil was to be used in the sin-offering (Lv 5"), or the jealousy- offering (Nu 5").

For these ceremonial purposes large quantities of oil were required. The allowance given to Ezra was 100 baths of oil (about 820 gallons), Ezr 73; the best of the oil was to be given to the priests, Nu 18%.

The amount thus offered is called 7 pr, the ordinance (AV) or set portion (RV) of oil, Ezk 45", The vessels used for oil in Bible times were various, Samuel and Zadok used a horn (777 keren), 1S 16, 1 K 1%; Samuel also used a vial (xp pak) of oil for anointing Saul, 1S 10], as did the prophet who anointed Jehu, 2 Καὶ 9'(AV box).

The widow’s oil was in a cruse {ππϑ gappahath) 1K 17% The widow of the prophet, whose οἱ Elisha multiplied, held it in a pot (τς ‘G@sth), 2K 4% The virgins in the parable carried their oil in a ἀγγεῖον or vessel. The word ‘oil’ is used metaphorically in many passages.

The pouring of oil out of the rock of flint in Dt 32 and Job 29° is a figure of abund- ance, the rock being either the stone press by which the olives are squeezed, or more probably the rocky slopes upon which the olives were culti- vated. Part of the blessing of Asher (Dt 33*) was that he should dip his foot in oil—a sign of favour and prosperity, a token that oil should be abundant in his territory. Josephus says of Galilee, in which was the lot of Asher, οὔσης ἐλαιοφόρου μάλιστα (BJ ll. xxi.

2). The foolish use of oil is a token of extravagance and cause of poverty (Pr 21"), while the husbanding of it is a proof of wisdom (Pr 21”). In Job 24", where the distressful case of the slaves of the oppressor is depicted, one of the labours to which they are condemned is the making of oil within the walls of the enclosed garden of their masters. The word used here (:173:, Hiph.

of a denominative verb from 79s: ‘ oil’) does not occur elsewhere, and was understood by LXX in a different sense, ἐν στενοῖς ἀδίκως ἐνήδρευσαν ὁδὸν δὲ δικαίων οὐκ ἤδεισαν, and the Vulg. renders it Inter acervos eorum meridiati sunt qui calcatis torculari- bus sitiunt. The ‘oil of gladness’ of Ps 457 = He 1%, and the oil of joy of Is 615, are marks of joy and festivity. he reproof of the righteous is com- pared to oil on the head (Ps 141°).

AV calls it ‘an excellent oil which shall not break my head,’ but it is better given in RV, ‘oil upon the head, let not my head refuse it.’ Words of deceit are said to be softer than oil (Ps 55", Pr 58). Cursing permeates the life of the wicked even as oil soaks into bone (Ps 1098). The destruction of the olive- yards in drought is called a languishing of the oil (J1 1°). MACALISTER.