In Isaiah 61:2 it speaks of having the “oil of joy.” It’s another of those archaic sayings that sounds cool but it a bit hard for the modern mind to understand. At least mine. I had to sit and think about it for a while.
At the time when this was written, and maybe even now, oil was much more precious than the actual fruit it came from (mostly olives). It is the distillation of the pressing of the fruit. It contains the amino acids and the basic goodness of the fruit, but it can be stored and kept much longer than the fruit.
It is also much harder to get than the fruit. You can’t just go out and pick oil off a tree, you must pick the fruit off just to begin the process. Then it must be picked over, gathered in large amounts, and then pressed. It takes a great deal of fruit to make a small amount of oil.
So in order to have the “oil of joy”, all our living experiences would have to be picked over¸ gathered up, and then pressed by all the trials and troubles and just plain life that it takes to have a good life, and then the oil of joy can be collected.
Lot of work. Well worth it.
Winter Moon Rising
Sharp and Bright, like the Truth
