The altar for incense
30
📚“And you shall make an altar 📖 to burn incense on. You shall make it of acacia wood. 2 📚Its length is to be a cubit, and its width a cubit. It is to be square. And its height is to be two cubits. Its horns are to be of one piece with it. 3 📚And you shall overlay it with pure gold, its top, its sides all around, and its horns. And you shall make a gold molding for it all around. 4 📚And you shall make two gold rings for it under its molding. You shall make them on its two sides, on its two opposite sides, and they shall be holders for poles to carry it with. 5 📚And you shall make the poles out of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. 6 📚And you shall put the altar before the veil that is near the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with you.30:6 Ex 26:31-33. Sometimes the altar of incense was outside the veil that hung before the Most Holy Place. Sometimes it was inside the veil (Heb 9:3-4). The altar with its incense signifies Christ as intercessor (Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25; 9:24; John 17:1-26). Christ as High Priest is the Mediator through whom the praises and prayers of God’s people ascend to God (Heb 13:15; Rev 8:3-4).⚜
7 📚“And Aaron shall burn fragrant incense on it every morning. He shall burn incense on it when he trims the lamps.
30:7 The incense signifies Christ’s own prayers.⚜
8 📚And when Aaron lights the lamps at twilight, he shall burn incense on it. There is to be a perpetual incense before the LORD throughout your generations. 9 📚You shall offer no strange incense on it, or a burnt sacrifice, or a food offering. And you shall not pour a drink offering on it.
30:9 The altar and incense signify Christ as intercessor, the one who prays for His people. There is no one else in heaven to mediate between God and God’s people (1 Tim 2:5). So all other incense was forbidden. Burnt offerings etc, were not to be offered here but on the altar in the courtyard. Every symbol in the tabernacle was to be in its own place and unmixed with any other symbol. Note at Lev 10:1-2.⚜
10 📚And Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonement. Once a year atonement shall be made on it throughout your generations. It is most holy to the LORD”.
The atonement money
11 “And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 12 📚“When you take a census of the children of Israel to number them, then each one of them must pay a ransom for his soul to the LORD, when you number them, so that there will be no plague among them when you number them. 13 📚This is what each one who comes to be numbered shall give: half a shekel 📖 according to the sanctuary shekel (a shekel is twenty gerahs). A half shekel shall be the offering for the LORD. 14 📚Every one who comes for numbering, twenty years old and over, shall give an offering to the LORD. 15 📚The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering to the LORD to make atonement for your souls. 16 📚And you shall take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shall designate it for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation, so that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before the LORD, to make atonement for your souls”.
The basin for washing
17 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 18 📚“You shall also make a bronze laver 📖, and its bronze base, for washing. And you shall put it between the tabernacle of the congregation and the altar, and you shall put water in it. 19 📚For Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet there. 20 📚When they go into the tabernacle of the congregation, they shall wash with water, or when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn offering made by fire to the LORD, so that they do not die. 21 📚And they shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they do not die. This shall be an ordinance for them forever, for him and for his offspring throughout their generations”.
The anointing oil
22 Moreover the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 23 📚“Take also for yourself the finest spices: five hundred shekels 📖 of pure myrrh, half as much, two hundred and fifty shekels, of sweet cinnamon, two hundred and fifty shekels of sweet calamus, 24 📚and five hundred shekels of cassia, according to the sanctuary shekel, and a hin 📖 of olive oil. 25 📚And you shall make it into a holy anointing oil 📖, a perfume mixture of the perfumer’s art. It is to be a holy anointing oil. 26 📚And with it you shall anoint the tabernacle of the congregation, and the ark of the testimony, 27 and the table and all its utensils, and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense, 28 and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the laver and its base. 29 📚And you shall consecrate 📖 them, so that they will be most holy. Whatever touches them will be holy.
30 📚“And you shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, so that they may serve me as priests.
30:30 Ex 29:7; Lev 8:12. Now all believers are anointed by Christ and consecrated by Christ to minister as priests to God (2 Cor 1:21-22; 1 John 2:20, 27; John 14:16-17; 20:21-22).⚜
31 📚And you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying, This shall be a holy anointing oil for me throughout your generations. 32 📚It shall not be poured on man’s flesh, neither shall you make any other like it, with its mixture. It is holy, and it shall be holy to you. 33 📚Whoever mixes any like it, or whoever puts any of it on a foreigner, shall be cut off 📖 from his people”.
The incense
34 📚And the LORD said to Moses, “Take for yourself sweet spices: stacte, and onycha, and galbanum, these sweet spices with pure frankincense. There is to be the same weight of each. 35 📚And you shall make an incense 📖 with it, a perfume, the work of a perfumer, salted, pure and holy. 36 📚And you shall beat some of it very fine, and put some of it before the testimony in the tabernacle of the congregation, where I will meet with you. It shall be most holy to you. 37 📚And as for the incense which you shall make, you shall not make its composition for yourself; it shall be to you holy for the LORD. 38 📚Whoever makes any like it to smell it, shall be cut off from his people”.