and 500 of cassia, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and a hin of olive oil.
God Himself appointed the spices and their quantities because nothing comes to Him but what comes from Him; the oil was compounded with exact art, infused, strained, and left sweetly fragrant for the tent and all its furniture, and for consecrating the priests in their generations.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 30:22-38
And of cassia five hundred shekels,.... Or two hundred and fifty ounces: after the shekel of the sanctuary; according to the standard weight kept there. This "cassia" was not the "cassia solutiva", which is of a purgative nature, and now in use in physic, but the "cassia odorata", or the sweet smelling "cassia": which, Pancirollus (s) says, some take to be the nard, out of...
cassia--from the same species of tree as the cinnamon--some think the outer bark of that tree. All these together would amount to one hundred twenty pounds, troy weight. hin--a word of Egyptian origin, equal to ten pints. Being mixed with the olive oil--no doubt of the purest kind--this composition probably remained always in a liquid state, and the strictest prohibition issued against using it for...