Exodus 30:25

Summary

Exodus 30:25 instructs that the compound ingredients previously listed be made into a sacred anointing oil, described as perfume-like work of a professional perfumer, and it closes by reaffirming that this product is a holy anointing oil.

Key words

• 'a.Si.ta ("you will make", H6213H) — qal sequential perfect, second person masculine singular; continues the sequence of instructions begun earlier in the chapter, addressed to a single "you."
• She.men ("oil of", H8081) — masculine singular construct, appearing twice (words 5 and 12), linking to what follows it in a construct chain.
• mish.chat- ("anointing of", H4888A) — feminine singular construct, also repeated, forming part of the recurring phrase "oil of anointing of holiness."
• Ro.kach ("perfume of", H7545) — masculine singular construct, introducing the description of the mixture as perfumer's work.
• ro.Ke.ach ("a perfumer", H7543) — qal participle masculine singular, meaning literally "one who perfumes/mixes spices," functioning as an agent noun describing the craftsman.
• yih.Yeh ("it will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, third person masculine singular, closing the verse with a statement about the ongoing identity/status of the oil.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav (ve., H9001) attached to 'a.Si.ta, continuing directly from the ingredient list of the preceding verses. The object marker 'o.T with suffix o ("it/him," H0853/H9033) refers back to that combined mixture, which is now to be made (literally "you shall make it") into something specified by a chain of construct nouns: She.men mish.chat-Ko.desh — "oil of anointing of holiness." This triple construct chain (noun-of-noun-of-noun) is a common Hebrew way of building a compound description without adjectives; each noun modifies the one before it.

The second half of the verse describes the process and quality of this oil using another construct chain: Ro.kach mir.Ka.chat ma.'a.Seh ro.Ke.ach — "perfume of an ointment-pot, work of a perfumer." Here ro.Ke.ach is a qal participle, meaning it names an active agent ("one who performs the action of perfuming") rather than a static noun, which grammatically emphasizes the craft or skill involved in the process rather than only the final product.

The verse then repeats the phrase She.men mish.chat-Ko.desh almost identically to the opening, but this time followed by yih.Yeh ("it will be," qal imperfect), forming a closing declarative statement. The repetition of the same three-word construct phrase at both the beginning (as the object being made) and the end (as the resulting identity) creates a framing structure in the Hebrew: the sentence starts with what is being made and ends by declaring what it is.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the double occurrence of She.men mish.chat-Ko.desh somewhat differently: the first instance becomes ἔλαιον χρῖσμα ἅγιον ("oil, a holy anointing/unction"), while the second is shortened to ἔλαιον ἅγιον ("holy oil"), dropping the word for "anointing" in the final clause. The Vulgate (VULCLEM) compresses the verse into a single clause, "unctionis oleum sanctum, unguentum compositum opere unguentarii," without explicitly repeating the closing declarative "it will be" (yih.Yeh) as a separate statement, unlike the Hebrew's clear two-part framing structure.