The term Christ is an English derivative of the New Testament
Greek word christos, which means "anointed." The equivalent
Hebrew word in the Old Testament is mashiach. This term is
transliterated in the King James New Testament as messias (John 1:41; 4:25), a word that has come down into modern English, including
many Bible versions, as "messiah." Both Christ and Messiah mean "anointed" or "anointed
one."
What was the significance of anointing? The Oxford Companion to
the Bible states: "In the Hebrew Bible, the term is most often
used of kings, whose investiture was marked especially by
anointing with oil (Judg[es] 9.8-15; 2 Sam[uel] 5.3; 1 Kings 1.39;
Ps[alm] 89.20 ...), and who were given the title 'the Lord's anointed'
(e.g., 1 Sam[uel] 2.10; 12.3; 2 Sam[uel] 23.1; Ps[alm] 2.2; 20.6;
132.17; Lam[entations] 4:20)" (Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan, editors,
1993, "Messiah," p. 513, emphasis added).
Anointing, this source tells us, "was widely practiced in the ancient
Near East; the Amarna letters [on clay tab-lets found in central Egypt]
suggest that anointing was a rite of kingship in Syria-Palestine in
the fourteenth century BCE [B.C.], and ...[a story from the time of
Judges] assumes its familiarity (Judg[es] 9:8,15)" ("Anoint," p. 30).
