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Exodus 27:20,  “And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always.”

 

Yesterday, I was starting to come down with a cold. My  nose was constantly running. I met with my study partner who immediately pulled out her essential oil called Thieves. I have my own theory on how it got its name.  The stuff is so strong and the smell is so strong it just steals the old cold away from you. Thieves and I carry a love/hate relationship. I can’t stand the stuff yet I recently put it on an angry looking boil and the crazy thing disappeared in less than half the time it took for a previous boil to disappear and I didn’t even have to have it lanced.  Yes, and when I got home I was no longer running through my reserve supply of Kleenex and this morning I am not all stuffed up as I expected I would  be.  Apparently, Thieves got its name because in the middle ages thieves would enter a village ravaged by the Plague and steal from the people dying of the Plague.  A great opportunity since no one would dare stop them lest they catch the Plague.  Oddly, the thieves seemed immune to the Plague and never seemed to catch it.  They claimed their secret was this essential oil that they carried around their neck like some amulet that protected them.  So this essential got its name Thieves.  As Isaac Asimov indicated,  myth is merely real life catching up with science. There was no magical power in the amulets, scientist have merely found that the Thieves essential oil in its purest state is a very highly anti-bacterial substance. Frankly, I think that stuff is so powerful in scent and reaction that no self-respecting plague wanted to be around it, let alone any people who might want to stop the thieves in their pursuits.

 

As I grudgingly put up with the oils powerful scent I could not help but think of Exodus 27:20 which commanded the children of Israel to bring pure oil beaten for the light. This was not the olive oil that was your conventional oil produced from the grinding of a mill, but it had to come from the olive of the tree free of lees and dregs and had to be beaten with a pestle in a mortar and not ground in a mill so it would be the purest oil. When ground in a mill the stones were broken and ground and so the oil was not so pure.  In other words  the purest oil from the olive came from being beaten and is a much more difficult process in obtaining oil than it is from grinding the olives. This is the idea behind the essential oils.  The essential oils differ from you standard run of the mill oil as the techniques to obtain 100% pure oil is a more difficult and costly process but the end results is a more natural and pure oil, hence much more powerful in scent and other usages.

 

Well, of course God wanted to use the purest form of oil for the tabernacle, right?  I am asking why use the purest form, any olive oil would burn in the lamps. The ancient rabbis used to instruct, “Look to the tabernacle to understand your relationship with God.”

 

When the sages and rabbis are studying and meditating on the Word of God they are very sensitive to unusual grammar or inconsistencies in language style.  Whenever the Word of God veers from its usual language structure it is telling you to probe deeper into that verse. Here we find that the verse tells us that the olives are to be  beaten for the light rather than beaten to be a light. The sages saw a subtle little hint here to something spiritual. Our souls are beaten not to become a light but for the sake of the Light.

 

That word beaten is very interesting.  In Hebrew it is the word kathith which is the noun form of kathath. As a noun it would be the beaten or the beaten oil.  Just as the children of Israel was only to bring the beaten or crushed oil to the tabernacle, we are only to bring only our beaten, crushed selves to God. Perhaps that is what the Apostle Paul meant in II Corinthians 4:7-12: 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. NIV.

 

What God wants to do is to put us through that type of difficulty that has the potential of kathath(ing) (crushing) us so that He can strip away all that trust in ourselves so that the world can see our trust is in God alone. He wants to strip us of all those lees and dregs to make our faith pure in Him. Pure faith, like pure oil, is the most lasting and most powerful.

 

But say, look a little further into this word for beaten or crushed, it comes from a Semitic root KTH.  This is an old Canaanite word used for beating into mortar. The Egyptians used mortar from combining clay, mud and sand and beating it into a fine past then using it to bind bricks together in construction. So the ancient Hebrew saw in the production of this pure olive oil a picture of their relationship with God. It is a process of beating all the impurities out of us to make a fine mortar which would permanently bind us together with God.  Note, however, like producing a pure oil and not just a mass produced oil, this meant it was a slow difficult process.  There is no way to reach a pure faith overnight, it cannot be mass produced, it has to be slowly developed.  Just as the 100% pure oil does not run out in a little stream from a grinder but it comes out one or two drops at a time. Pure faith comes one or two drops at a time until you have enough to fill your lamp and light up with the eternal Light of God.  Just as pure oil is much more effective and powerful than mass produced oil, pure faith is much more effective and powerful when produced over a period of time drop by drop.  Then you are being kathath (beaten, crushed) for the Light (Jesus), a pure faith for the sake of God and not a faith to gain benefits for yourself.

Uses-of-Young-Living-Thieves-Oil young-living-thieves

A versatile and health-enhancing alternative!

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Founded on the historical account of a group of 15th century French thieves who anointed themselves with potent aromatics while robbing plague victims in order to stay immune, Thieves® Blend is a powerhouse for your body’s defense system.

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Click on link below to write Laura for more information or to order product

Independent Distributor #1572361

https://www.chaimbentorah.com/contact-us/

Call Laura at 708-289-3691

or

visit our Essential Oils link at: www.youngliving.org/laurabertone

 

 

 

 

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