Olive oil
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G1637 names olive oil, a common ancient commodity used for lamps, food, care, trade, hospitality, and anointing. Luke 10:34 says the Samaritan pours oil and wine on the wounded man's injuries before transporting him to an inn and continuing his care.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἔλαιον (G1637) · Open the biblical lexicon
G1637 names olive oil, a common ancient commodity used for lamps, food, care, trade, hospitality, and anointing. Luke 10:34 says the Samaritan pours oil and wine on the wounded man's injuries before transporting him to an inn and continuing his care.
The BSB source-word alignment has 11 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include oil (5), with oil (3), of olive oil (1), olive oil (1), with [the] oil (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 25:3. Its strongest book concentrations include Luke (3), Matthew (3), Revelation (2), Hebrews (1).
G1637 names olive oil, a common ancient commodity used for lamps, food, care, trade, hospitality, and anointing. Luke 10:34 says the Samaritan pours oil and wine on the wounded man's injuries before transporting him to an inn and continuing his care. Matthew 25:3 distinguishes attendants who bring lamps without extra oil from those prepared for a delayed bridegroom.
James 5:14 directs a sick person to call the church's elders for prayer and anointing with oil in the Lord's name. Revelation 6:6 mentions oil and wine within a vision of severe grain prices and economic distress. The noun names the substance; its function comes from verbs, objects, social setting, and symbolic context. Oil is not automatically the Holy Spirit in every passage, and James does not authorize magical claims, abandonment of medicine, or guaranteed immediate cure.
G1637 helps teachers join embodied care, watchful readiness, communal prayer, and economic awareness while respecting the difference between ancient household use, pastoral anointing, medical treatment, and apocalyptic imagery.
G1637 appears as lamp fuel, a commodity, wound care, hospitality, anointing, and the oil of joy. The same material can serve ordinary and symbolic roles, but the passage must identify whether function, trade, care, or anointing is primary.
He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
The Samaritan applies oil and wine to a wounded man, bandages him, transports him, pays for lodging, and promises continuing care, making the oil one part of comprehensive mercy.
The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take along any extra oil.
The foolish attendants carry lamps without extra oil, and the parable's delayed bridegroom makes their lack of preparation consequential without explicitly identifying oil as one separate spiritual entity.
Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.
James directs a sick person to summon church elders for prayer and anointing with oil in the Lord's name, placing care within accountable communal ministry.
And I heard what sounded like a voice from among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine.”
A voice announces extreme grain prices while oil and wine are not to be harmed, locating these goods in an apocalyptic scene of scarcity and unequal economic pressure.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Essential commodity with practical uses: lamps, healing ointment, ceremonial anointing, feast hospitality.
Essential commodity with practical uses: lamps, healing ointment, ceremonial anointing, feast hospitality.
olive-oil: Luk.16:6, Rev.6:6 18:13; for lamps, Mat.25:3-4, 8; for healing, Mrk.6:13, Luk.10:34, Jhn.5:14; for anointing at feasts, Luk.7:46, Heb.1:9" (LXX) .
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
11 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
olive oil
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Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 3 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 11 lexical occurrence verses.
ἔλαιον is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G1637 keeps ministry embodied. In Luke 10, oil is one element in the Samaritan's response to a wounded stranger. He also approaches, bandages, transports, shelters, pays, and promises follow-up. The parable does not offer a modern medical protocol, but it refuses compassion that remains only verbal. Matthew 25 uses lamp oil in a story about readiness during delay.
The practical shortage matters to the plot, yet Jesus does not pause to define oil as the Holy Spirit or another one-to-one symbol. James 5 places oil within prayer by accountable elders in the name of the Lord. Christian traditions understand the action in different sacramental and medicinal ways, but the text centers communal prayer and the Lord rather than a substance's independent power.
Medical evaluation, treatment, safeguarding, and truthful prognosis should not be displaced. Revelation 6 treats oil as an economic good amid grain inflation, reminding readers that commodities, scarcity, and unequal access affect actual bodies. G1637 therefore supports practical care, watchful faith, prayer, and economic concern. It also demands restraint: olive oil is not every modern essential oil, anointing is not magic, and a person who remains ill has not thereby failed in faith.
The church can pray boldly while continuing skilled care and honoring the sick person's consent and dignity.
Jas.5.14
G1637 is the Greek noun for olive oil. New Testament contexts distinguish lamp supply, commercial quantity, bodily application, hospitality, and anointing. The noun does not itself specify sacramental status, medicinal efficacy, symbolic referent, or quality grade.
Old Testament oil belongs to food, lamps, hospitality, healing practice, royal and priestly anointing, offerings, joy, and scarcity. New Testament uses receive that material world, but no lexical shortcut permits every olive-oil reference to become anointing, Spirit symbolism, or a promise of physical healing.