Blood and oil for anointing?
Exodus 29:10 begins a lengthy set of instructions regarding the ceremonies that had to be performed to “consecrate” (Ex 29:1; lit. “make holy”) Aaron and his sons as priests. Modern readers may wonder at the elaborate and often bloody details of the rituals described here.
Ancient readers would have puzzled much less over the details, partly because of previous experiences with such rites but also because they understood the nature of what was taking place. To serve as a priest, a person had to be prepared for contact with that which was holy—the sacred realm, the world of the divine.
Ancient Israelite society operated on the understanding that there were three distinct categories or states in which persons (and objects) could find themselves: the state of uncleanness, the state of cleanness and the state of holiness.
Yahweh inhabited the last, and animals unfit to eat inhabited the first. Persons could move between being clean and unclean, depending on what they had recently been doing, eating, touching, etc.
In a state of uncleanness, people were not allowed to approach anyone or anything deemed holy. Even persons who believed themselves to be in a state of cleanness could suffer dire consequences for coming into contact with that which was holy without authorization (e.g., 2Sa 6:6–7).
One of the goals of Yahweh’s covenant with the Israelites was to make them a “holy nation” (Ex 19:6).
But this would not happen instantly; for the time being, only the priests were to be made holy. The consecration of priests thus was a process fraught with peril.
The transfer of a human being from the world of the ordinary—the world of the profane, where things and people were either only clean or unclean—to the world of the holy was not to be approached carelessly.
While the significance of all the ritual actions described is not clear to us, what is clear is that this type of transfer process requires time and ritual precision.
Similarly, elaborate rituals accompanied the installation of religious functionaries in other ancient Near Eastern societies. The Israelites were no exception in their attention to the proper consecration of their priests.
Placing blood and oil on Aaron and his sons (29:7, 20–21) assists in consecrating them—transferring them into the realm of the sacred and making them fit for service to Yahweh.
What is unclear is how blood and oil bring this about.
An interesting parallel turns up from Emar in a text about the celebration of the Zukru festival, which can be characterized as celebrating the new year.
At one point during the ceremonies, a set of stones is to be rubbed with oil and blood. This may also be an act of consecration, but the type of stones involved and the precise nature of the act are obscure.
Nevertheless, the combination of oil and blood seems to have held important religious significance in other ancient Near Eastern societies. It may relate to ceremonies where people and objects must cross the sometimes dangerous chasm between the sacred and profane.
In Exodus 29:1 it says: "serve me as priests."
If prophets are individuals who spoke messages from God to humans, priests operated in the opposite direction: representing the people before God. While the priests here are said to possess the equipment necessary to receive messages from Yahweh, their primary role was that of an intermediary on behalf of the people.
For Yahweh to be their God and for proper worship, the people needed religious officials who could contact Yahweh and provide the necessary worship and service to Yahweh within his place of residence (the tabernacle).
While prophets were often reformers and individualistic, priests were more institutionalized and associated with long-standing traditions. The priests serving in the tabernacle were engaged in all aspects of mediating access to sacred space for the people.
Keener, C. S., & Walton, J. H., eds. (2016). NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture (p. 165). Zondervan.
