Chapter Thirty

1–10. The arrangement of the incense altar. 11–16. The sacred offering. 17–21. On the arrangement of the basin. 22–33. The anointing oil. 34–36. Sacred incense.

Exodus 30:1. And you shall make an altar for the offering of incense; you shall make it of acacia wood: Exodus 30:2. its length shall be one cubit, and its width one cubit; it shall be square; and its height shall be two cubits; its horns shall be of one piece with it; The naming of the incense altar as an altar—that is, by the same name that was given to the altar for offering sacrificial animals—clearly shows that the offerings made on the incense altar were likewise offerings to the Most High. The horns of the incense altar came from it, constituting one whole with it (Exod 27:12).

Exodus 30:3. And you shall overlay it with pure gold, its top and its sides around it, and its horns; and you shall make for it a golden border around it; Exodus 30:4. under the border of it, on two corners of it, you shall make two golden rings; you shall make them on two sides of it; and they shall be holders for the poles, to carry it by them; Exodus 30:5. You shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. The entire altar, except the lower side facing the ground, was overlaid with gold, not bronze (Exod 27:2). The border, arranged at the upper edge of the altar, was probably somewhat higher than its upper board.

Exodus 30:6. And you shall place it before the veil that is before the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is on the ark of the testimony, where I will meet with you. The exact determination of the location of the incense altar is given in the words: “before the veil, opposite the mercy seat.” The latter expression indicates that the altar should be placed before the center of the veil, so that it stood directly opposite the ark of the testimony, at an equal distance from both the north and south sides of the sanctuary.

Exodus 30:7. Aaron shall burn fragrant incense on it; every morning when he tends the lamps, he shall burn incense with it; Exodus 30:8. And when Aaron lights the lamps in the evening, he shall burn incense with it: a regular incense offering before the Lord throughout your generations. The time of burning incense on the incense altar coincides with the time of performing the daily morning and evening burnt offering (Exod 29:39), and its burning is likewise obligatory for all future times of the existence of the Old Testament Church, just as the daily sacrifices of lambs (Exod 29:38).

Exodus 30:9. You shall not offer on it any other incense, nor burnt offering, nor grain offering, and you shall not pour a drink offering on it. Exodus 30:10. And Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year; with the blood of the sin offering of atonement he shall make atonement for it once a year throughout your generations. This is most holy to the Lord. To the account of the arrangement and purpose of the incense altar is joined a command for Aaron and every future high priest, once a year, on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16), to make atonement on its horns with the blood of the sin offering. By its name—“most holy”—the incense altar is placed on the same level as the Holy of Holies, the altar of the courtyard (Exod 29:37), the table, and the lampstand (Exod 30:29).

Exodus 30:11. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Exodus 30:12. When you take a census of the people of Israel for their numbering, then each shall give a ransom for himself to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them; Exodus 30:13. Each one who is numbered in the census shall give half a shekel, according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs); half a shekel as an offering to the Lord; Exodus 30:14. Everyone from twenty years old and above, when numbered in the census, shall give the offering to the Lord; Exodus 30:15. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give the offering to the Lord as a ransom for your souls; Exodus 30:16. And you shall take the ransom money from the people of Israel and shall appoint it for the service of the tent of meeting; and before the Lord it shall be a reminder to the people of Israel of the ransom given for your souls. Concerning the sacred offering. The commandment to pay the sacred offering interrupts the account of the arrangement of the tabernacle furnishings. This occurred not only because the sacred offering provided the means for their preparation (Exod 30:16, Nehem 10:33-34), whereby the account of it is quite fitting alongside the account of the objects for which it is spent, but also because the account of the incense altar is concluded with the commandment to purify it. And the sacred offering also had a purifying significance.

Exodus 30:12. When you take a census of the people of Israel for their numbering, then each shall give a ransom for himself to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them; Inclusion in the census meant enrollment in the list of men of military age, capable of bearing weapons (Num 1:3), defenders of the freedom and independence of the Hebrew people. The greater the number of these defenders, the more secure was the protection of the people’s freedom and independence. But one can rely on this protection only through God’s mercy toward the defenders of the people, because their very life is in God’s hands. As a testimony of constant dependence in very being upon God, those being counted must give a gift to God for the ransom of their souls—that is, their lives. This gift, presented with an awareness of complete dependence upon God, had the significance of an appeasing and purifying sacrifice, turning away the wrath of the Lord.

Exodus 30:13. Each one who is numbered in the census shall give half a shekel, according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs); half a shekel as an offering to the Lord; Half of a sacred shekel, the amount of the offering, equals about forty or forty-three kopeks.

Exodus 30:14. Everyone from twenty years old and above, when numbered in the census, shall give the offering to the Lord; The census was to include men beginning from the age of twenty and above, but at what age limit—is not stated. It can be supposed that the right to be excluded from the list was given by reaching the age of fifty (Num 4:3, cf. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 3:8, 2). The silence of the law about an annual contribution, the silence about an annual taking of the census, and the testimony of the book of Nehemiah about the voluntary obligation undertaken by the returning exiles to pay annually for the needs of the tabernacle 1/3 of a shekel give reason to think that the sacred contribution for the tabernacle should be a single, one-time payment.

Exodus 30:15. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give the offering to the Lord as a ransom for your souls; The collection has the significance of a purifying and appeasing sacrifice, and therefore its amount is the same for rich and poor alike.

Exodus 30:16. And you shall take the ransom money from the people of Israel and shall appoint it for the service of the tent of meeting; and before the Lord it shall be a reminder to the people of Israel of the ransom given for your souls. The Most High will not forget with His mercy those enrolled in the census; He will spare their lives.

Exodus 30:17. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Exodus 30:18. You shall make a bronze basin for washing, with a bronze stand for it, and you shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it; As is evident from the text, the basin consisted of two parts: a vessel for water and a stand; some indications of the arrangement of the first part are given by Exod 38:8 (see the commentary on that place). The basin was located between the tabernacle and the altar, on a straight line from the latter to the entrance of the sanctuary.

Exodus 30:19. And Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet from it; Exodus 30:20. When they go into the tent of meeting, let them wash with water, so that they do not die; or when they come near the altar to minister, to make a food offering to the Lord, Exodus 30:21. they shall wash with water, so that they do not die; and this shall be a perpetual statute for them, for him and for his offspring throughout their generations. A reverent attitude toward the holiness of the place—“when they go into the tent of meeting,” and toward the holiness of the action—“when they come near the altar to minister” (by connection of the text, to the incense altar), requires physical cleanliness. Neglect of it, a manifestation of an irreverent attitude toward the holy place, is punished with death.

Exodus 30:22. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Exodus 30:23. Take for yourself the finest spices: five hundred shekels of pure myrrh, half that amount—two hundred fifty shekels—of fragrant cinnamon, and two hundred fifty shekels of fragrant cane, The oil intended for anointing the tabernacle, its furnishings, Aaron and his sons (Exod 30:26 and others), was prepared by Bezalel. It consisted of “pure myrrh”—that is, the resin of the myrrh shrub that comes out of itself in drops at various places on the stem of this shrub. The amount of this resin is indicated by the word “five hundred,” without specification of measure. But as is evident from the remark Exod 30:24: “according to the shekel of the sanctuary,” the measure was “the sacred shekel,” 500 sacred shekels equal almost 16 pounds. Cinnamon—that is, the bark from the cinnamon tree, found even now in India and on the island of Ceylon—was to be taken in an amount of 250 shekels, that is, about eight pounds. Fragrant cane, having aromatic roots, was known to the ancients as one of the most fragrant substances.

Exodus 30:24. and five hundred shekels of cassia, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and a hin of olive oil; Cassia is an aromatic bark from the tree “laurus cassia.” A hin was about a quarter of a bucket.

Exodus 30:25. And you shall make of these a sacred anointing oil blended as by the perfumer; it shall be a holy anointing oil. The specific method of preparing the oil is unknown—whether there was special processing of each of the fragrant substances before combining it with the others, or special processing of the entire mixture is not precisely known.

Exodus 30:26. And you shall anoint the tent of meeting and the ark of the testimony, Exodus 30:27. and the table and all its furnishings, and the lampstand and all its furnishings, and the altar of incense, Exodus 30:28. and the altar of burnt offering and all its furnishings, and the basin and its stand; Exodus 30:29. and you shall consecrate them, that they may be most holy; everything that touches them shall be holy. The anointing with oil of the objects listed in the preceding verses set them apart from the circle of common household items. It served as a visible sign of the accomplishment of God’s will in giving the anointed objects such significance and such power as they could not have possessed in themselves.

Exodus 30:30. You shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests. The anointing of Aaron, like the anointing of the tabernacle furnishings, set him apart with his sons from among the rest of the people, establishing them as mediators between God and people.

Exodus 30:31. And say to the people of Israel: This shall be my holy anointing oil throughout your generations. Exodus 30:32. It shall not be poured on the bodies of ordinary people, and you shall not make any other oil like it in composition; it is holy, and it shall be kept holy by you; Exodus 30:33. Whoever compounds a perfume like it or whoever puts any of it on an unauthorized person shall be cut off from his people. The sacred oil is removed from ordinary human use; whoever violates this ordinance is punished with death (Gen 17:14).

Exodus 30:34. And the Lord said to Moses: Take fragrant spices—stacte, onycha, and galbanum, fragrant spices with pure frankincense (of each shall there be an equal part), The substances that make up the fragrant incense are not precisely known. The Hebrew word “stacte,” literally meaning “drop, dripping,” indicates not the substance itself but its appearance from the plant drop by drop. “Onycha” is understood as either an excrescence on a shell or the shell itself of one type of snail found in the waters of India and the Red Sea. The name of the third substance, “galbanum,” indicates its white color, similar to the color of milk. Galbanum is understood as a resin obtained from a shrub growing in Syria and Persia. The remark “fragrant” indicates that galbanum could be fragrant or non-fragrant. The fourth incense—“frankincense”—is the resin of a plant of the terebinth species, found in southern Arabia. The addition to the name of this substance of the word “pure” indicates either the absence of any admixture, which it would have been profitable to mix into the composition of this valuable substance, or the method of collecting the resin. Namely, to obtain completely pure resin, they spread a cloth around the plant, onto which its drops fall. Only the equal amount of each of the substances that were to go into the composition of the incense was determined.

Exodus 30:35. And you shall make an incense blended as by the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy; The method of preparing the incense remains unknown.

Exodus 30:36. You shall beat some of it into powder and put it before the ark of the testimony in the tent of meeting where I shall meet with you; it shall be most holy to you. The command to “beat it into powder” indicates not the method of preparing the incense but the form in which the prepared incense should be placed in the tent of meeting. Taking a portion of the prepared incense, it was necessary to beat it into powder and use it in that form. From Exod 40:5 it is clear that the incense was to be placed on the altar, which stood in the sanctuary opposite the ark of the covenant, which was behind the veil in the Holy of Holies.