Olive Oil

Anciently, priests and high priests who served in the tabernacle and temple were anointed with olive oil, as were various items that belonged to the tabernacle (see “Anointing [with Olive Oil]”). In our day, as President Boyd K. Packer has explained, both “washings and anointings” are “associated with the endowment.”219 What symbolic quality is associated with olive oil?

A number of scriptures associate olive oil with the Holy Ghost.220 Luke, for example, wrote that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power” (Acts 10:38; see also D&C 45:56–57; Matt. 25:1–14). John associated the anointing of oil with the Holy Ghost or with receiving divine truth and being taught from on high (see JST, 1 John 2:20–27). Paul also made a direct connection between the anointing and the Holy Ghost when he wrote that he who “hath anointed us, is God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Cor. 1:21–22). Similarly, Old Testament passages connect the Holy Ghost with olive oil and the anointing (see 1 Sam. 16:13; 18:12; Isa. 61:1; Luke 4:18, 21).

Horn serving as the receptacle for the sacred anointing oil.

In the Old Testament, a horn served as the receptacle for the sacred anointing oil. Zadok the priest utilized a horn of oil from the tabernacle when he anointed King Solomon (see 1 Kgs. 1:39), and Samuel the prophet used a horn of oil when anointing King David (see 1 Sam. 16:13). The horn of oil was of such significance that the Psalmist wrote, “But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an [wild ox]: I shall be anointed with fresh oil” (Ps. 92:10).