Gethsemane - The Oil Press

The Mount of Olives lies across the Yoshafat Valley and is about 260 feet higher elevation than the Temple Mount of Jerusalem. It was from this vantage point that David fled from Absalom and wept. It was from this place, Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem.

Just below the Mount of Olives is the place we westerners call “The Garden of Gethsemane”. More accurately it was the place where the olives were processed from the harvest. The olives were picked and gathered for fruit, lighting, lubricating oil, health care and anointing. The oil press in ancient days was stone. This stone press was called a gethsemane.

The process of extracting oil from the olive fruit was fairly simple. You put the olives into the basin of the Olive crusher. The Olive crusher had a mill stone that would have a beam that rolled the stone over the olives to “crush” them. Once crushed, the pulp would be put in baskets. These baskets would be placed under the Gat (a place for pressing) shemanim (oil). This Gatsemanim stone would then press down on the crushed olives and extract the oil.

Jesus went to the place where olives were harvested to be “crushed”. The weight of the world was the mill stone. The weight of the sins of the world pressed down on him just like the rock slab pressed down on the baskets of olives.
The Gospel of Luke states that the sweat of Jesus was “like drops of blood falling on the ground”.

Jesus took on the full weight of our sin – yours and mine. He was pressed down.

Somehow, that image of the Gethsemane experience of Jesus makes my burdens seem lite and my yoke easy.