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‘Anointed’ and ‘Messiah’: A New Investigation into an Old Problem *

In most scholarship, the term ‘Messiah’ is used to describe a divinely appointed figure who will come at the end of days. In contrast, in the Bible the term ‭חישמ‬, ‘anointed’, is reserved for a person anointed with oil who holds a high office. This clear-cut distinction has led many scholars to search for the origin of the figure of the Messiah in Second Temple Judaism. This article argues that the origin of the former understanding of the term ‘Messiah’ is found already in biblical anointment narratives. In the historical books of the Bible that narrate the monarchic period (Samuel–Kings), only those who were not eligible for kingship by birth were anointed—some of them by divine decree. When anointing is performed in compliance with divine ordinance, as is the case with Saul, David, and Jehu, it has a soteriological facet.