Way back in Exodus 25, the Text begins the instructions for the Tabernacle by talking about the Ark of the Covenant. It then moves outwards to the holy of holies, then the holy place, then the courtyard.
Now, in Exodus 27:20-21, the Test returns back to the holy place—specifically, the light that is burning on the candlesticks. God had already told them how to build the candlesticks themselves, but now He’s instructing them what kind of oil to use, and how long it should be lit.
The answers to both of those questions are simple. The olive oil should be of the purest kind (beaten, not pressed in a mill), and the light should shine all the time. Just like God is never far from His people, so the light should never go out of His dwelling place.
A few practical questions immediately come to mind with these instructions. First, how many olives does it take to keep a the lamps burning continually, and where are they supposed to find all the olives to supply the oil?
Part of the difficulty here lies in the types of olives used for the oil. The Text is explicit that the oil be “clear” (Exodus 27:20) and pressed, which means not run through a mill where impurities can gather inside the oil. Instead, the process for making this oil would be similar to how Texans make guacamole: a big bowl with a heavy mortar crushing the contents (terrible analogy, I know, but it works for me).
Most commentators agree that the olives used to obtain this “clear” oil would be young olives, which means the priests would have to hand-select them, instead of indiscriminately grabbing them from trees.
Fortunately, olive trees grow in rocky, well-drained soil, so its likely the priests would have had several opportunities to gather olives. There’s also archeological evidence of several trade routes running right through the Sinai Peninsula, so what they couldn’t obtain from nature (or God’s providential hand), they could get through commerce.
But just how much oil would it take to keep the lamps burning continuously? I’m not a Jewish scholar, nor am I familiar with lighting practices of ancient priests, but the internet does exist, which means surely someone, somewhere, has asked this question before.
Sure enough, I found an answer. According to one source, each candle would require around 200mL of oil per day. There were seven candles on the candlestick, so that’s roughy 1400mL of oil, conservatively speaking. Multiply that by 365 days in a year, and you would need 511,000 mL to keep the lights burning year round.
How many olives would you need to get 511,000 mL worth of oil, though? The average yield for extra virgin olive oil (known for its purity), is around 200mL per kilogram of olives. That means priests would need to collect 2,555 kilograms per year. For those of us in America, that’s 5,633 pounds (nearly three tons) of olives.
(Disclaimer: Math isn’t my strong suit, so if you checked through this out and find out I’m wrong, email me so I can correct it.)
Clearly, this is a huge job, and one that I never gave full credit to until I looked a little closer at this section. It’s conceivable that whereas you had a healthy percentage of the priests whose job it was to kill animals all day, there were also priests who did nothing but procure olives. All the time. Every day.
Imagine being that guy.
