אִם־חֻקֹּתַ֥י יְחַלֵּ֑לוּ וּ֝מִצְוֺתַ֗י לֹ֣א יִשְׁמֹֽרוּ׃
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Rabbeinu Bahya
שמן משחת קדש יהיה זה לי, “this shall remain for Me oil of sacred anointment.” Nachmanides explains that actually we would have expected the Torah to write יהיה לאהרן ולבניו, “it shall be for Aaron and his sons.” The reason that he Torah did not phrase it in this manner but wrote: “it will be for Me (G’d),” is to make plain that in future generations High Priests and furnishings of the Temple, etc., would also have to be consecrated by the same mixture. We might have misunderstood the words “anyone who compounds its like or uses it to anoint a non-priest shall be cut off from his people,” as applicable to anyone not directly descended from Aaron. Had this been the correct interpretation the question would be how any of the kings of Israel (Yehudah) who were not descended from Aaron but from David could have been crowned using this oil? This is why the Torah wrote: “it shall be for Me,” to teach that the title כהן could also be applied to kings approved by G’d. Both descendants of Aaron and kings descended from David are to be treated as “anointed by the Lord.” We have a specific verse in which G’d commanded the prophet Samuel to go to Chevron and there to anoint one of Yishai’s sons i.e. David, as king (compare Samuel I 16,12). We have a further reference to this event in Psalms 89,21: “I have found David, My servant; anointed him with My sacred oil.” David meant: “with oil which is sacred for Me.” Keeping this thought in mind, the Torah added in verse 32: “it shall not be smeared on human flesh.” The word אדם in this verse makes sense only if it means “a person who is neither a priest nor a king descended from David.”
We need to understand why the Torah first wrote the paragraph about the anointing oil and only afterwards the paragraph about the components of the incense, [something that was offered on the altar twice every day. Ed.] The two different kinds of oil and incense respectively correspond to the “head and the foot.” The people who were smeared with the anointing oil were the heads of the nation, i.e. the spiritual head, the High Priest and the temporal head, the king. Heads wore crowns, i.e. the oil was smeared on in an arc describing the shape of the letter כ as symbolizing the shape of a crown. Oil is the choicest of all liquids. It was certainly appropriate to make the anointing fluid out of olive oil, appropriately aromated. We have pointed out earlier that the verse שאו ידיכם קדש describes hands raised above the head. The incense, which, as we also mentioned earlier, represents the attribute of Justice and the last letter ה in the tetragrammaton as the symbol of that attribute, is fittingly mentioned at the end of this legislation. You will note that in connection with the compounding of the oil of anointing G’d used the relatively harsh word וידבר when commencing His instructions to Moses. When He began the instructions about the incense and its components, etc., He began with the softer word ויאמר. This was probably in order to soften the impact of the fact that the קטורה appears usually in connection with G’d’s anger. The fact that it was used to assuage G’d’s anger, whether actual or potential, is reflected in the softer introduction with the word ויאמר.
We need to understand why the Torah first wrote the paragraph about the anointing oil and only afterwards the paragraph about the components of the incense, [something that was offered on the altar twice every day. Ed.] The two different kinds of oil and incense respectively correspond to the “head and the foot.” The people who were smeared with the anointing oil were the heads of the nation, i.e. the spiritual head, the High Priest and the temporal head, the king. Heads wore crowns, i.e. the oil was smeared on in an arc describing the shape of the letter כ as symbolizing the shape of a crown. Oil is the choicest of all liquids. It was certainly appropriate to make the anointing fluid out of olive oil, appropriately aromated. We have pointed out earlier that the verse שאו ידיכם קדש describes hands raised above the head. The incense, which, as we also mentioned earlier, represents the attribute of Justice and the last letter ה in the tetragrammaton as the symbol of that attribute, is fittingly mentioned at the end of this legislation. You will note that in connection with the compounding of the oil of anointing G’d used the relatively harsh word וידבר when commencing His instructions to Moses. When He began the instructions about the incense and its components, etc., He began with the softer word ויאמר. This was probably in order to soften the impact of the fact that the קטורה appears usually in connection with G’d’s anger. The fact that it was used to assuage G’d’s anger, whether actual or potential, is reflected in the softer introduction with the word ויאמר.