Exodus 30:22 to 33 gives Moses a precise formula for the anointing oil used to consecrate the Tabernacle, the ark and its furnishings, and Aaron and his sons as priests: a stated weight of pure myrrh, sweet cinnamon, sweet calamus and cassia compounded into a hin, an ancient liquid measure, of olive oil according to 'the art of the perfumer.' The text is unusually specific for a ritual instruction, giving exact quantities rather than general guidance, and it immediately restricts the resulting compound's use: it may be poured only on the Tabernacle, its vessels and the priesthood being consecrated, may never be poured on the body of an ordinary person, and no one may compound its equivalent for private use, on pain of being cut off from their people, a formula of exclusion the Torah uses elsewhere for its most serious ritual offenses.
Beyond the priesthood's initial consecration, the Hebrew Bible's narrative books describe kings of Israel anointed with oil at their accession, Saul, David and Solomon among them, an act that gave the Hebrew term for anointed, mashiach, messiah, the royal and later eschatological associations it carries through the rest of Jewish and Christian tradition. Whether royal anointing used the identical Exodus 30 compound or a related but distinct oil is a question the biblical text does not settle explicitly, and later rabbinic sources debate the point directly.