True hyssop (H. officinalis) is a plant with a long history of use in food and folk medicine. This word hyssop makes me think of biblical stories where a plant by this name was used as a cleansing herb in religious ceremonies. Some say ancient Romans used hyssop as a barrier to negativity. While the Hebrew word for hyssop, “ezob,” and the Greek “hyssopos,” were used in scripture and translated to hyssop in English, some researchers argue that H. officinalis is not the plant in question. Like the first Passover, when hyssop was used to spread the purifying blood of the lamb upon the Israelite’s doorpost, hyssop is used here as Jesus bleeds out the blood that would purify and atone for our sins for eternity. Just as hyssop aided in spreading the blood of a sacrificial life to save the Israelites at the first Passover, hyssop aided in the shedding of Jesus’ blood at the cross to save the world from their sins. This last use of hyssop at the cross eliminate the need for its ceremonial use of purification. Jesus’ sacrifice upon the cross is the only purification we need to be right with God and live with Him for eternity. Hyssop was necessary in the Old Testament for purification, but Jesus’ work on the cross has eliminated the need for ceremonial cleansing. His blood purifies all who believe in Him by faith once and for all, so that we no longer needed to be cleansed ceremonially.
It reads in John 19:28-30 ERV> After this, Jesus knew that everything was now finished. Then he said, ‘I am thirsty.’ He said this so that things would happen in the way the Bible already said. There was a pot full of cheap wine there. So someone put a piece of cloth into the wine. They fixed the cloth to the end of a branch. The branch was from a plant called hyssop. Then they lifted the cloth up to Jesus’ mouth. Jesus drank the wine. Then he said, ‘Everything is finished.’ He bent his head down and he let his spirit go.