to set someone or something apart for God's service by pouring or smearing oil on them
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the word's central and most loaded use. To anoint a person or object was not just to wet it with oil; the oil marked it as taken out of ordinary use and handed over to God. A king, a priest, or a prophet was anointed into his office, and the tabernacle and its furnishings were anointed to make them holy.
The act carried real weight. Once a man was anointed king, harming him was treated as an attack on someone God had chosen, which is why David twice refused to strike "the LORD's anointed." The same gesture installed Aaron and his sons as priests and consecrated the altar and its vessels.
From this office-giving use the word reaches toward the figurative: a person could be described as anointed with the Spirit, or with the "oil of gladness," where the oil stands for God's empowering choice rather than a literal pouring. This sense is the seed of the later hope for a coming Anointed One.
Nuances
1ato anoint a person into a sacred office (king, priest, or prophet)
1dto anoint with God's Spirit or favor (a figurative anointing where the oil stands for divine empowering or gladness)
Psa 45:7(8)Isa 61:1Dan 9:24*
2
to smear or rub a liquid (oil, paint, or ointment) onto a surface, with no sacred meaning
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
Underneath the ritual sense lies the plain physical action the word started from: to spread a liquid across a surface. The same verb covers smearing oil onto a leather shield to ready it for battle, coating the planks of a house with red pigment, rubbing perfumed oil onto the body for comfort or luxury, and working oil into wafers of bread.
These uses share no holiness at all. They show that the word's root idea is simply application by smearing, and that the consecration sense grew out of it: to anoint a king was, at bottom, to pour oil over him, but freighted with meaning. Keeping the two apart prevents reading sacred significance into a verse that only describes greasing a shield or painting a wall.
Nuances
2ato smear or rub oil, ointment, or paint onto a surface or the body, with no sacred meaning
Isa 21:5Jer 22:14Amo 6:6
2bto mix or work oil into bread or cakes (oil spread through the dough)
Installs a person into a standing office. The oil is what makes a man king, and the act is the appointment itself, not a preparation for it.1Sa 10:11Sa 16:131Ki 1:39
Works the same way for priests and prophets, so all three of Israel's God-given roles are entered by having oil put on you.Exo 29:7Lev 8:121Ki 19:16Isa 61:1
Is done to objects as well as people, in order to move them out of ordinary use and hand them over to God: the tent of meeting and its furniture, and the stone Jacob set up at Bethel.Exo 30:26Lev 8:10Num 7:1Gen 31:13
Leaves behind a title and a protected status that lasts long after the oil dries. God can say of David years later that he had anointed him king, and the man so treated becomes untouchable.2Sa 12:72Sa 19:101Sa 15:1
In its central use the oil is applied by someone else on God's instruction, so nobody takes the office by oiling himself.1Sa 16:31Ki 19:152Ki 9:6
Stretches to plain smearing of a substance onto a thing, with no holiness in view at all: paint brushed onto a palace's woodwork, oil rubbed onto shields before battle, oil spread across the thin cakes of an offering.Jer 22:14Isa 21:5Lev 2:4Exo 29:2
Both
Both describe olive oil going onto a human body, poured or rubbed on, so the physical act itself can look identical from the outside.Lev 8:12Ezk 16:9
They genuinely overlap at one point, where מָשַׁח steps down into plain self-indulgence: rich men at a banquet rubbing on the finest oils are doing the same everyday thing that סוּךְ names when David oils himself after washing.Amo 6:62Sa 12:20
English Bibles say "anoint" for both, which hides the difference completely. The same English sentence can mean "made king by God's command" or "put lotion on after a bath," and only the original tells you which.1Sa 10:1Deu 28:40
Both assume a world where oil on the skin is normal and welcome, which is what lets מָשַׁח borrow so ordinary a gesture and load it with something far weightier: the king in Psalm 45 is given "the oil of gladness" above his companions.Psa 45:7Rut 3:3
Sits inside the ordinary routine of getting cleaned up: wash, oil your skin, put your clothes on, in that order. Nothing about the person's standing changes.Rut 3:32Sa 12:20
Is common enough that leaving it undone is how grief shows on the body. A woman is coached to skip the oil so she will look like a long-term mourner, and Daniel goes three weeks without it.2Sa 14:2Dan 10:3
Belongs on the list of small daily comforts a curse takes away: the olive trees grow and the presses run, and still the oil never reaches your skin.Deu 28:40Mic 6:15
When it is done to someone else it is bodily care for the helpless, ranked alongside feeding, clothing and carrying them: prisoners of war sent home in decency, and an abandoned baby washed clean.2Ch 28:15Ezk 16:9
Carries the meaning of setting a person apart for an office by applying oil, marking out kings and prophets for their role.1Sa 16:131Ki 19:16
Consecrates objects, not just people, dedicating the tabernacle and its furnishings as holy.Exo 40:9Exo 30:26
Both
Meet at the anointing of a king or priest, where one word reports the oil being poured out and the other names the act of consecration it accomplishes.1Sa 10:1Exo 29:7
Names the plain physical act of pouring a liquid, with no built-in ceremonial meaning: water poured for washing, broth poured out, oil added to a grain offering.2Ki 4:4Lev 2:1
Stretches beyond liquids to the casting of molten metal, where the metal is poured into molds to form bases, rings, and fittings.Exo 25:121Ki 7:24
mashaḥ in the other biblical languages
χρίωGreek“to anoint”the Greek verb for anointing that renders this word, used in the New Testament almost only of God anointing Jesus or his people with the Spirit, having shed the everyday smearing sense
It names the literal act of pouring or smearing oil, including on lifeless objects, to consecrate the tabernacle and its furniture.Exo 40:9Num 7:1
It covers the ordination of priests, applying oil to set them apart for their service at the altar.Exo 28:41Lev 8:12
It is the standard verb for installing a king, poured out over the head to make him ruler over Israel.1Sa 10:11Sa 16:132Sa 2:4
Both
Both name the act of anointing a person to set them apart for a God-appointed office, and χρίω is the Greek word chosen to carry the Hebrew verb into the New Testament.1Sa 16:13Act 10:38
In the New Testament the word is confined to God anointing a person with the Holy Spirit and power, never to pouring physical oil.Luk 4:18Act 10:382Co 1:21
It marks the specifically messianic anointing that installs Jesus as the Anointed One and, by extension, marks his followers as God's own.Act 4:27Heb 1:9
The formal word for consecrating a person to sacred office by pouring oil on the head, applied to priests set apart to serve God.Exo 28:41Lev 8:12
The word for making a king, so that the anointing itself installs him in office; it is the root behind the title Messiah, the Anointed One.1Sa 10:11Sa 16:132Sa 2:4
Extended to dedicating the tabernacle and its furniture to God, marking objects as holy, which the Greek word never does.Exo 40:9Exo 40:10
Both
Both are rendered to anoint and both describe applying oil to a person; the Hebrew word is the Old Testament term for sacred anointing while the Greek word covers the common, everyday kind.1Sa 16:13Jas 5:14
Names ordinary, physical anointing with oil for everyday life: grooming the head, tending the sick, honoring a guest, or preparing a body for burial. It is never used to install someone in an office.Mat 6:17Mrk 6:13Jas 5:14
Used of pouring costly oil on Jesus's feet or head as a personal act of love and devotion.Luk 7:38Jhn 12:3
Used of anointing a corpse with oil and spices in preparation for burial.Mrk 16:1
What scholars say about mashaḥ
The standard lexica (HALOT, BDB, DCH) take the verb as one root meaning "to smear, spread (a liquid)" with two grouped uses: the literal application of oil, paint, or ointment, and the ritual anointing that consecrates a person (king, priest, prophet) or sacred object to God's service. The theological dictionaries (TDOT, TWOT, NIDOTTE) trace how the office-anointing use became the matrix for the noun mashiach and the later messianic hope, while stressing that in the Hebrew Bible the verb overwhelmingly describes the installation of historical kings and priests rather than an eschatological figure.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. משׁחlexicon
BDB, s.v. משׁחlexicon
DCH, s.v. משׁחlexicon
K. Seybold, "מָשַׁח māšaḥ," TDOT 9:43-54theological-dictionary
TWOT, no. 1255 (מָשַׁח)theological-dictionary
V. P. Hamilton, "מָשַׁח," NIDOTTE 2:1123-1127theological-dictionary