Mashiach

Most of us understand the word "Messiah"-משיח as one who is literally anointed with oil. However, I have been contesting this for years now due to the fact that several people are called "anointed" even if they never actually had oil placed on them. While dealing with this word in a different setting, I checked some background information about the subject. Dr. Hayim Tawill in his book "An Akkadian lexical companion for BH" (KTAV 2009) explains that the word comes from the Akkadian word "miŠihtu" which means a "share", meaning that when one is "anointed" one is receiving a share (p.226). What this implies is that it is not the anointing with oil which is the point, but what the person receives. One can be "anointed" even without oil, and the oil was only the external symbol of something much deeper

There are some places where it is clear oil was not placed on the person. It is very possible that the original meaning was one, and became another in time. It however does not change the fact that oil was used in most cases. An interesting thing is that most of the cases in the bible where this root appears are in the book of Samuel where it is very emphatic. I think that in Samuel it is pointed out due to the conflict between Saul and David who were both anointed. There is an interesting note in rabbinic writings that only when there was a dispute was a king anointed, but in other cases they were not anointed because David had been anointed in the past and that anointed the whole line. When a text does say something we can assume it did happen, but we have no proof it actually did.

The point to be made here is not the literal cases in the Hebrew text, but rather the original intent of the word. There is no doubt that Hebrew uses the root to mean actual use of oil, however the way Akkadian uses it can shed light on the earlier use of the word, and it is possible that it traveled into Hebrew from Akkadian.

One of the points to be made is that we do find the root being used in a non literal way such Lamentations 4:20, Habakkuk 3:13 and Isaiah 45:1, 61:1. But this is not the main argument because one can argue that it was borrowed from the literal meaning.

The case of Habakkuk is an interesting one where the word for people is synonymous with anointed making the people the anointed one.

יָצָאתָ לְיֵשַׁע עַמֶּךָ, לְיֵשַׁע אֶת-מְשִׁיחֶךָ

It is possible, however not proven, that the word "anointed" is being used here in the sense of "your share". Though this is a "bit" of a stretch, we do find עם and נחלה as parallels, and this might be a rare case where משיחך substitutes נחלה. Because this section in the bible is poetic, we can sometimes find unusual uses, and even rare ones.

As stated, the main point is the possibility that משח originally meant "share", and in time was used to mean "one who is anointed with oil".