OHOLIAB (2:5ny ‘father’s tent’; Ἐλιάβ; AV Aholiab).—The chief assistant of Bezalel in the construction of the tabernacle, Ex 315 35% 361-2
38% (all P). It is possible (cf., for the name, Pheen. Syabax, ySobax, Himyaritic annybax, Sxbax, Edomite (7) soaSax Gn 365: 4!) that he was of non- Israelitish origin (see Gray, HPN 246 n.),
J. A. SELBIE. OHOLIBAH.—See OHOLAH.
OHOLIBAMAH (>3">px ‘tent of the high place’). —1. One of Esan’s wives, Gn 36% 5 14.18.25 (Ὀλιβεμά, ᾿Ελιβέμα, ᾿Ολιβέμα). All the passages where she bears this name belong to R or to a late stratum of P. Elsewhere (Gn 26% P) Esau’s wives have quite different names, and the whole subject of his marriages is wrapped in obscurity (see the Comm. of Dillm. and eines ll.citt.). 2. An Edomite ‘ duke,’ Gn 36 (Ἐλιβεμᾶ:).
J. A. SELBIE.
OIL (usually 75 shemen ; 23 t., when coupled with other products of the field in their unmanufactured state [see Driver on Dt 715], 17s:; in the Aramaic part of Ezr ngo ; LXX and NT Aatov).—One of the most important products of Palestine, mentioned more than 200 times in the Bible. Sometimes it is specifically called ‘olive oil,’ lit. ‘oil of olive,’ shemen zayith, to indicate its source, as Ex 27% 30, Ly 247, or ‘oil olive,’ lit. ‘ olive of oil,’ Dt 8° (zéth shemen), 2K 18% (zéth yizhar); but, even when not so expressed, the material referred to is the product of the olive in all cases but one, viz. Est 2, where oil of myrrh is specially men- tioned. The olive tree and its fruit are elsewhere
OIL
jescribed (see art. OLIVE, and οἵ. ii. p. 31), and the methods employed in extracting the oil from its fleshy drupes are there given.
Several kinds of olives were cultivated in Pales- tine. According to Menahéth, viii. 3, those of Tekoa were the best, those of Ragab the second best. Three other varieties—that of Netophath, that called Saphconi, and that named Bisani—are mentioned in Peah, vii. 1. The last is said to be so called because it is so prolific that it makes all others to be ashamed. Columella, who calls the olive the first of all trees, mentions 10 varieties whose culture he describes at length (de Re Rustica, v. 8, xii. 49-54, and de Arboribus, xvii.); and Pliny names 15 kinds, of which the Licinian was the best (xv. 4). Cato (de Re Rustica, 64-69) es the modes in use for purifying the oil, and Palladius (de Re Rustica, i. 20; Mar. viii, Oct. viii, Nov. v) describes the oil cellars and per! particulars in olive culture. For descriptions of the olive varieties now in culti- vation see Barbe, Etudes sur les oliviers; and details of ancient methods of expressing the oil are given in Blumner’s Technologie, i. 318. St. Paul uses the figure of olive-grafting in Ro 11” in the i sre sense to that referred to by Palladius (de
nsitione, xiv., ‘fecundat sterilis pingues, oleaster olivas’). In Geoponica, ix., there is also an account of the culture of the olive, and of the experiments made of grafting olives on vines ; this ἐλαιοστάφυλος and the effect produced on the fruit of the graft is mentioned in an an (Brunek, iii. 231).
Different kinds of oil were known in Palestine. Pure (RV) or beaten (AV) oil is specified in Ex 27% 29% Lv 242, Nu 28° (LXX ἔλαιον ἐξ ἐλαίων ἄτρυγον καθαρόν ; Vulg. oleum purissimum piloque contusum). This is the oil now known in com- merce as virgin oil, extracted by simple pressure without heat. In Zec 4" it is called zahab or golden. The inferior kinds are extracted by more
powerful pressure, and the coarse or gorgon oils by
the aid of boiling water. These contain fermentible materials, the lees or Amurca, a watery bitter liquid, whose use, when separated from the oil, as a sheep-dip is mentioned by Virgil (Georg. iii. 448) ; said by Varro to be valuable for killing weeds, and by Cato to be destructive to ants. The coarsest oul is known now in the market as wile denfer ; it is bitter, and soon becomes rancid. In the present day the cheaper oils are largely adulterated with or replaced by cotton-seed oil, which is, for most purposes, illuminant or dietetic, inferior to pure olive oil ; for the latter surpasses all others in consisting, toa much larger extent, of the glycerides of unsaturated acids, and it can be recognized and distinguished from its adulterations by the rapidity with which it consolidates in the presence of nitrous acid (Brannt, On Oils, i. 318). For the different kinds of oils in Talmudic times see Menahéth, viii. 4, 5.
Oil is coupled with corn and must as an element of national wealth in Dt 7 11" 1917 14% 184 28°), 2 Ch 32%, Neh 5", Hos 25 5, J] 2! With corn, must, and honey in 2 Ch 31° it formed part of the tribute brought to Hezekiah on the restoration of the priesthood. Raisins, figs, wine, and oil were brought by the northern tribes for the feast of rejoicing when David was made king (1 Ch 12”).
ust and oil as the typical produce of the land are mentioned in Neh 10% 13°, Jer 3113, J] 2%; must and oil in Neh 10%, Hag 1"; wine, summer fruits, and oil were gathered by the remnant left in the land after the Captivity (Jer 40"). Sennacherib promised Israel that, if they would submit, he would bring them to a land of oil-olive and honey (2 K 18”), meaning probably some region about Gordywa or 5. Kurdistan; it can- not have been Babylonia, as the oil used there, ac- cording to Strabo (xvi. 1. 14), is that of sesamum,