The golden incense altar was made of acacia wood for burning incense, Exodus 30:1 / Exodus 37:25. It was square, half a metre by half a metre wide, and one metre high, Exodus 30:2 / Exodus 37:25.
The top, the sides and the horns were overlaid with gold and it had a gold moulding around it, Exodus 30:3 / Exodus 37:26. Two gold rings were to be made for the altar below the moulding, two on each of the opposite sides to hold the poles used to carry it, Exodus 30:4 / Exodus 37:27.
The poles are to be made of acacia wood and overlaid with gold, Exodus 30:5 / Exodus 37:27. It was situated just in front of the veil, the curtain which separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, Exodus 30:6.
Constable, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Old Testament passages say that the incense altar was inside the holy place with the golden lampstand and the table of showbread, Exodus 30:6 / Exodus 40:3-5 / Exodus 40:21-27.’
Aaron must burn fragrant incense on the altar every morning when he tends the lamps, Exodus 30:7. He is to burn incense again when he lights the lamps at twilight so incense will burn regularly before the LORD for the generations to come, Exodus 30:8.
However, Aaron isn’t permitted to offer on this altar any other incense, burnt offering, grain offering, and he wasn’t permitted to pour a drink offering on it, Exodus 30:9.
Once a year Aaron is to make atonement on its horns and the annual atonement must be made with the blood of the atoning sin offering for the generations to come, it is most holy to the LORD, Exodus 30:10.
Rawlinson, in his commentary, says the following.
‘There seems to be sufficient reason for considering the altar of incense as, next to the ark and the mercy-seat, the most sacred object in the furniture of the tabernacle. This precedence indicates the extreme value which God sets upon prayer.’
The burning incense signifies prayer and points us to the prayer of the Lord Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, John 17 / Mark 14:32-42 / Psalm 141:2 / Revelation 5:8.
Similar to the showbread table, Exodus 25:23-30, the golden incense altar had a golden crown around the top of it. This signifies ‘Jesus, crowned with glory and honour’, Hebrews 2:9. However, because the golden incense altar is the place of prayer, the crown and the prayer together give us a hint of a kingly priesthood.
This thought is developed in the Book of Hebrews, the Messiah, ‘Jesus Christ has become a priest according to the order of Melchizedek’, Psalm 110:1 / Hebrews 7:1-28.
He can sympathise with us as our great High Priest, Hebrews 4:15, and He is able to minister His supply of mercy and grace to us as the King of righteousness and King of peace, Genesis 14:18 / Hebrews 2 / Hebrews 4:16 / Hebrews 7:25.
Prayer is very important in the daily life of all believers in the Lord, Daniel 6:10 / Matthew 6:5-13. We should pray without ceasing, 1 Thessalonians 5:17, using all kinds of prayers and petitions with thanksgiving, praying at every time in the Spirit, watching and persevering in prayer not just for ourselves but for all our brothers and sisters, Ephesians 6:18.
Prayer is becoming increasingly important, especially as the battle intensifies and utterance of the Gospel becomes harder, Ephesians 6:19. However, when our prayer is genuinely at the Golden Incense Altar, the Lord causes much incense to be added to our prayer. That incense rises back to Him as we pray according to His will, and the results are dramatic, Revelation 8:3-4.
The tabernacle is the house of God, His dwelling place, Exodus 25:8-9, and a foreshadowing of both Christ and the church, Colossians 2:9 / 1 Timothy 3:15 / Ephesians 2:21-22. God desires that His house should ‘be a house of prayer for all nations,’ Isaiah 56:7.
For us to pray at the golden incense altar, blood must first be applied, Exodus 30:10 / Leviticus 4:7, the blood of the sin offering, Exodus 29:10-14. Then the incense must be prepared with genuine acknowledgements and experiences of the Son’s Name, His purity, holiness, subjection, faith, and dependence on God the Father, John 16:23-24.
One of the ingredients of the incense was salt, to make our prayer neither sentimental nor formal. We should pray at every time in the Spirit, Ephesians 6:18, in the Son’s Name. This will be a sweet incense to God the Father.
Jesus’ ministry was not just healing and teaching people, it was also a service to God the Father in His living and in praying, Mark 1:32-35. The night before He chose His twelve disciples, Jesus spent the whole night in the ‘prayer of God’, Luke 6:12.
His admonition, ‘Pray that you may not enter into temptation,’ and His observation regarding praying that ‘the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,’ Matthew 26:41. So obviously come from One who is qualified to comment, Hebrews 2:14 / Hebrews 2:18.
In His prayer in John 17, Jesus utters such meaningful requests, with such adoration of the Father, acknowledging His own position as a man and that of the Father as Giver of all authority, John 17:2, as Holy Father, John 17:11, as Righteous Father, John 17:25.
This prayer is no ‘last night’ performance, it is rather the continuation of a life of the previous prayer, as indicated by the phrase ‘Father, the hour has now come’, John 17:1.
Here in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is at the golden incense altar, on the night before the veil, that is His flesh, Hebrews 10:20, will be torn from top to bottom, by God His Father, Matthew 27:46 / Matthew 27:51. Jesus’ prayer is for eternal life for all those the Father has given to Him.
Jesus is like the high priest in the tabernacle, bearing the names of the disciples, and those who will believe through their word, John 17:20, on His heart, the breastplate.
His prayer is that the Father will do the following.
1. Keep the disciples, guarding them all in the Father’s own holy name, in unbroken oneness, as the Father and the Son are one, John 17:6-12.
2. Sanctify them in His word of truth, setting the disciples apart to the Father as Jesus Himself had been set apart to the Father, for their impact in the world with the Gospel, that generations of believers may be one, one in Them, the Father and the Son, John 17:13-21.
3. Send the glory of the Son, John 1:14, and John 17:1, to the believers, that they may be perfected in oneness, so that the world may see the love of the Father for His only begotten Son and also the Father’s love for His many children, John 1:12-13 / John 1:18 / John 3:5-6 / John 17:22-26 / John 20:17.
This is the prayer for eternal life, ‘that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent,’ John 17:3. Jesus said, ‘I come that they may have life and have it abundantly,’ John 10:10.
Eternal life is simply to know the Father and the Son and their oneness, truly, for eternity. This is Jesus’ prayer for eternal life; may it also be ours. Such a fragrance of incense exudes from this deep prayer by the great High Priest for all those in the House of God!
Let us also come to the Golden Incense Altar and thence boldly through the Veil to the throne of grace, the Ark of the Covenant, that we may find the mercy and obtain the grace He has prayed for us in this great time of need! Hebrews 3:6 / Hebrews 4:14-16.
God tells Moses, when he takes a census of the Israelites to count them, each one needs to pay the LORD a ransom for his life at the time he is counted, Exodus 30:11. If each one pays, then no plague will come on them when Moses numbers them, Exodus 30:12.
Barnes, in his commentary, says the following concerning the meaning behind the plague.
‘That they might not incur punishment for the neglect and contempt of spiritual privileges.’
Coinage wasn’t known in Israel in the times of Moses; hence, the weight of this tax was specified as twenty gerahs, Exodus 30:13. The word ‘gerah’ means a bean, probably a carob bean, from which our word ‘carat’ is derived, and weighing about eleven grams.
The half-shekel tax, Exodus 30:13, continued down through the times of the Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew 17:24-27. What was required here was a tax for every male of Israel who was twenty years old and older, Exodus 30:14.
Notice, since everyone was to pay the same, the tax equalised everyone, rich and poor, Exodus 30:15. The rich couldn’t claim any advantage over the poor by being able to contribute more.
Everyone had to pay the same, and so, be considered the same in reference to God’s favour. Notice the money was to be given for services for the tabernacle, Exodus 30:16 / Exodus 25:1-9.
Dobson, in his commentary, says the following.
‘For the service of the tent of meeting’, Exodus 30:16, means, ‘For the construction of the Tabernacle, it does not mean that they collected the money for sacrifices or services of worship in the Tabernacle.’
This contribution probably became an annual obligation tax in Israel in the years to come, 2 Chronicles 24:9. It was atonement money in the sense that it reminded the giver that in no way could one atone for his own sins, Exodus 30:16.
Since the contribution was only a half shekel, one would rightly conclude that the greatness of his sins couldn’t be bought, no matter how much or how little one gave. Since atonement cannot be bought, no amount of money can pay the price for our sins.
The Bible doesn’t record the size or dimensions of the bronze basin.
Coffman, in his commentary, says the following.
‘Exodus 38:8 reveals the source of the brass (bronze) from which the laver was constructed. The women of Israel, apparently nearly all of them, had brought brass mirrors with them out of Egypt, the highly-polished metal being the only type of mirror known at that time, and they contributed these personal items so highly prized by them for the making of the bronze altar.’
The laver was a large bronze basin containing water for washing purposes, Exodus 30:17. It was to be placed between the tent of meeting and the altar and put water in it, Exodus 30:18. Aaron and his sons are to wash their hands and feet with water from it, Exodus 30:19.
Having entered through the door into the tabernacle’s outer court, the priests had to wash their hands and feet at the laver, Exodus 30:19; the same rule applied when they approached the altar to minister by presenting a food offering.
However, God warned Moses that if the priests did not wash, they would die, Exodus 30:20-21. This is to be a lasting ordinance for Aaron and his descendants for the generations to come, Exodus 30:21.
God warned Moses that if the priests did not wash, they would die. It is therefore a serious requirement that we ‘wash’ as we come to handle any of the things of the Lord because those who believe in the Lord Jesus are considered priests in the New Testament sense, 1 Peter 2:9 / Revelation 1:5-6.
The New Testament speaks of washing in two ways.
1. Baptism, Acts 22:16 / Acts 16:31-33.
2. The washing of the water in the Word, John 13:8-10 / John 15:8 / Ephesians 5:26.
All of which is according to the pattern in Exodus 29:39, ‘offer one in the morning and the other at twilight’, at least twice daily, in the morning and evening.
After having believed in the Lord Jesus and experienced that He is the door through which we enter into God’s kingdom, we should come to Him every day in a simple and sincere way.
We need to read the Word of God in the Bible so that we can live by Him, Matthew 4:4, and we need to confess our sins to God because He is faithful and righteous to forgive and cleanse us, 1 John 1:7-9.
When God forgives, He forgets, Hebrews 8:12. This is the combined experience of the laver and the burnt offering altar. It is important to read the Bible because the Word of God washes us, our ‘hands’ and ‘feet’, especially from the dirtiness of the world around us.
It gives us God’s perspective on our human conduct in the world and on the thoughts of our minds and hearts, Genesis 6:5. When Ephesians 5:26 speaks of the washing of the water in the Word, the word for washing is ‘laver’ in Greek.
As we read His Word, the Lord shines into our hearts and speaks to us, mostly in our conscience. According to God’s shining and enlightening, we will need to confess and ask for His forgiveness and cleansing. Only then are we qualified to approach the sanctuary building.
The effect of the washing, ‘laver’ in the Word, is to cleanse, Psalm 119:9. This results in us taking God’s side more and more in our lives. We become set apart to God. ‘Holy’ or ‘sanctified’, ‘holified’ means just that, set apart to God. Such sanctified people are called ‘saints’ in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 1:2.
Saints are believers in Christ who have experienced the washing of God’s Word in their lives. We may have been greedy persons, swindlers, drunkards, abusers of drugs, thieves, liars, fornicators, homosexuals, involved with pornography, etc, before we came to the door in the curtains of the outer court. But do not be deceived, no one can inherit the kingdom of God like this, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.
We are washed at the Laver and set apart to God, sanctified. As a result, we are justified at the burnt offering altar by faith in Jesus’ death on the cross as ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,’ John 1:29.
The message Jesus preached was ‘times up. Change your mind and believe the good news,’ Mark 1:15, ‘The time is fulfilled. Repent and believe the gospel’. Peter, Andrew, James, John, and the other disciples of Jesus did just that; they changed their minds and began to follow Jesus.
They left their old environment because they had found something so real and true, the reality of the tabernacle, Jesus. They admired the Door, His character, His power, His teaching, He had washed their feet at the Last Supper, and they saw the offering as He died, John 13:4-11.
The disciples became set apart to God amidst a totally hostile environment. But this was not the end; Jesus rose from the dead. He came back to them, not just to tabernacle among them, but dwell in them, as God’s dwelling place, the sanctuary.
The text designates that this was to be ‘freely flowing myrrh,’ Exodus 30:23, as contrasted with the myrrh produced by making incisions into the myrrh trees. The kind that appeared by itself was considered best.
The ancients used it, 1. as a perfume, 2. for embalming the dead, and 3. for incense. This gum is produced from a low, thorny, ragged tree that grows in Arabia Felix and Eastern Africa, called by botanists Balsamodendron Myrrha.
Cinnamon, Exodus 30:23, is a rare spice, derived from a species of the laurel tree, ‘Laurus Cinnamomum’, which grows only on the Malabar coast of India, Ceylon, Borneo, Sumatra, China, and Cochin China. The mention of it here shows that there was commerce between the Far East and the Near East in this early period.
Several aromatic reeds of this fragrant calamus, Exodus 30:23, are known, and it’s impossible to know exactly which one was meant here. Cassia, Exodus 30:24, is a spice which bears a strong resemblance to cinnamon, in fact having the botanical name ‘Cinnamomum Cassia’. It’s more pungent than the cinnamon which we know today, and of a coarser texture.
Coffman, in his commentary, says the following concerning Exodus 30:22-24.
‘There is some curiosity as to how some 46 1/4 pounds of spices could be pulverized and mixed with about a gallon and a half of olive oil, but the explanation is in Exodus 30:25, where the instructions indicated that all of this was to be done ‘after the art of the perfumer’.’
A perfumer was one who had mastered the art of apothecary, Exodus 30:25. Those who had this skill knew how to make this special oil from the four designated ingredients. The mixture was to be used first to anoint the tabernacle and its furniture in order to set them apart for their intended function.
Once the tabernacle and its furniture were sanctified, Exodus 30:26-29, no one was to touch them except those who were also sanctified. And so, the priests were also anointed with oil in order to be sanctified for their service in the tabernacle, Exodus 30:30. Moses is to tell the Israelites that this is to be God’s sacred anointing oil for the generations to come, Exodus 30:31.
However, there is also a warning, the anointing oil is not to be poured on anyone else’s body and no other oil is to be made by the same formula, it is sacred, and the Israelites are to consider it sacred, Exodus 30:32. Anyone who makes perfume like it and puts it on anyone other than a priest must be cut off from their people, Exodus 30:33.
Cook, in his commentary, says the following.
‘According to Jewish tradition, the essence of the spices was first extracted and then mixed with the oil. The preparation was entrusted to Bezaleel, Exodus 37:1 / Exodus 37:29, and the duty of preserving it fell upon Eleazar the son of Aaron, Numbers 4:16.’
In the midst of many slayings of animals for sacrifices, the sweet aroma of the perfume aided the senses of the priests who had to work in such an environment.
There are two kinds of gum resin, Exodus 30:34, one of myrrh and one of storax and a fat mixed. The kind mentioned here is supposed to be myrrh. Onycha, Exodus 30:34, is a mollusc which emits a highly aromatic odour when burned. Gathered in the Near East until recently, it’s used as an ingredient in perfume, and as a principal component of incense in India.
Galbanum, Exodus 30:34, is a gum resin with a pleasant odour and a bitter taste. It is imported from Persia. It’s derived from certain umbelliferous plants. Frankincense, Exodus 30:34, is a gum derived from the ordinary fir tree, but the frankincense of the Jews is a substance now called Olibanum, a product of certain trees of the genus Boswellia. It grows in Arabia and Somaliland.
The incense, which is to be salted and pure and sacred, Exodus 30:35, was to produce a sweet-smelling aroma for the priest who conducted sacrifices at the tabernacle. Though the aroma of the incense would remind the people of the pleasant atmosphere of God’s presence, it also had a very practical use.
They are to grind some of it to powder and place it in front of the ark of the covenant law in the tent of meeting, where God will meet with them; it shall be most holy to them, Exodus 30:36.
Notice that the Jews were forbidden to make any of these sacred oils or incense for their own use, because it is to be considered holy to the LORD, Exodus 30:37. If anyone did, then they would be ‘cut off’ from God’s people, Exodus 30:38.
These sacred materials were solely for use as God directed and not for the personal use of any person whomsoever, except the ordained priests of the tabernacle.