Exodus 29:7
And thou shalt pour the oil of unction upon his head: and by this rite shall he be consecrated.
Open Exodus 29:7 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- et oleum unctionis fundes super caput ejus : atque hoc ritu consecrabitur.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ λήμψῃ τοῦ ἐλαίου τοῦ χρίσματος καὶ ἐπιχεεῖς αὐτὸ ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ, καὶ χρίσεις αὐτόν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְלָֽקַחְתָּ֙ אֶת שֶׁ֣מֶן הַמִּשְׁחָ֔ה וְיָצַקְתָּ֖ עַל רֹאשׁ֑וֹ וּמָשַׁחְתָּ֖ אֹתֽוֹ
Haydock's commentary
Pour, in the form of a cross or T, according to many of the Rabbin, &c. The inferior priests were anointed only on the hands. The Levites were sprinkled with oil, mixed with the blood of the victims. The custom of anointing prophets, priests, and kings, was peculiar to the Jews; as if to foreshow Christ, the great anointed of the Lord. (St. Augustine; Psalm xliv.; Daniel ix. 24.)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Tertullian On Baptism, Of the Unction
After this, when we have issued from the font, we are thoroughly anointed with a blessed unction, (a practice derived) from the old discipline, wherein on entering the priesthood, men were wont to be anointed with oil from a horn, ever since Aaron was anointed by Moses. Whence Aaron is called “Christ,” from the “chrism,” which is “the unction;” which, when made spiritual, furnished an appropriate name to the Lord, because He was “anointed” with the Spirit by God the Father; as written in the Acts: “For truly they were gathered together in this city against Thy Holy Son whom Thou hast anointed.” Thus, too, in our case, the unction runs carnally, ( i.e. on the body) but profits spiritually; in the same way as the act of baptism itself too is carnal, in that we are plunged in water, but the effect spiritual, in that we are freed from sins.