It seems worthy of note that this perfume consists of three sweet spices with pure frankincense—four component parts—whereas the holy anointing oil, just before alluded to, was made up of four principal spices and of oil olive, or five ingredients. In the case of the perfume, each ingredient was to be of a like weight, though that weight seems purposely not to be stated; but in the anointing oil, the weight of each compound is given and varies.
The perfume brings the excellencies of Christ for God very specially before us. The ingredients, represented by the figure four, set forth completeness on earth, and are generally divided into three (reminding us of the Trinity) and one. The four Gospels may serve as an instance, three leading up to the rejection of our adorable Lord, and one, that of John, commencing with it.
It is said that stacte (nataph) signifies “to distil"; and that it was “distilled myrrh.” Onycha (shechaleth) is understood to be the cover of a shell fish, like the purple, found in the spikenard lakes of India, and giving a sweet odor; for the shell fishes there feed upon spikenard. And galbanum (chelbenah), derived from a root signifying “fat,” was useful as an ingredient to make the perfume retain its fragrance. Taken together then, do not these compounds speak to us of the depths of suffering, divine love made the Lord Jesus to endure? Think of Gethsemane and of the “distilled myrrh” —His being “overwhelmed” as in the inspired heading of Psalm 102, and yet as the One who had made the fragrant, yet perishable, shell fish, for “they shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed” (ver. 26)! And is there no preserving galbanum in this that follows: “But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end” (ver. 27)? Beloved, may we never forget the perfume was to be beaten “very small” (ver. 35)! The marginal reading of the 35th verse of our chapter seems preferable to “tempered together,” and reads “salted.” Pure and holy, it also was. Do we wonder that in verse 36 it is written, “It shall be unto you most holy”?
In verse 25 we read of the oil as “an holy anointing oil,” and in verse 32 it is said of it, “It is holy, and it shall be holy unto you “; and, anointed with it, the tabernacle, the ark of the testimony, the table and its vessels, the candlestick and its vessels, the altars of incense and of burnt offering, with the vessels, the laver and its foot—all are sanctified, “that they may be most holy; whatsoever toucheth them shall be holy.” But of the perfume itself it is recorded, “it shall be unto you most holy.”
Is not the reason for this to be found here, “Ye shall not make to yourselves according to the composition thereof: it shall be unto thee holy for Jehovah”? As one has written, “Here it seems to be not so much what we have by Christ, but the fragrance in Christ Himself, of which God alone is the adequate judge, and which rises up before Him in all its perfection. How blessed for us! It is for us, but it is only in Him before God.”
We can appreciate to the full the five component parts of the holy anointing oil, which was not to be poured on man's flesh, but only on Aaron and his sons. Still, as they were taken from among men, five was the figure used, as is the case when man is in question, and it was excellent for “ordinances of divine service, and the worldly sanctuary” (Hebrews 9:1). And blessed are these seven (mystical perfection) ordinances, given us in verses 26 to 28, and lovely in their place as types. Nevertheless, as we contemplate what is represented by the perfume, one can but feel that here, as elsewhere, there is “the glory that excelleth” (2 Corinthians 3:10).
W. N. T.