Exodus 30:7-9

30:7 Aaron is to burn sweet incense ¹  on it morning by morning; when he attends ²  to the lamps he is to burn incense. ³  30:8 When Aaron sets up the lamps around sundown he is to burn incense on it; it is to be a regular incense offering before the Lord throughout your generations. 30:9 You must not offer strange incense on it, nor burnt offering, nor meal offering, and you must not pour out a drink offering on it.

Exodus 30:35

30:35 and make it into an incense, ⁴  a perfume, ⁵  the work of a perfumer. It is to be finely ground, ⁶  and pure and sacred.

Exodus 31:11

31:11 the anointing oil, and sweet incense for the Holy Place. They will make all these things just as I have commanded you.”

Exodus 37:29

37:29 He made the sacred anointing oil and the pure fragrant incense, the work of a perfumer.

Exodus 40:27

40:27 and he burned fragrant incense on it, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

¹ tn The text uses a cognate accusative (“incense”) with the verb “to burn” or “to make into incense/sweet smoke.” Then, the noun “sweet spices” is added in apposition to clarify the incense as sweet.

² tn The Hebrew is בְּהֵיטִיבוֹ (bÿhetivo), a Hiphil infinitive construct serving in a temporal clause. The Hebrew verb means “to make good” and so in this context “to fix” or “to dress.” This refers to cleansing and trimming the lamps.

³ sn The point of the little golden altar of incense is normally for intercessory prayer, and then at the Day of Atonement for blood applied atonement. The instructions for making it show that God wanted his people to make a place for prayer. The instructions for its use show that God expects that the requests of his people will be pleasing to him.

⁴ tn This is an accusative of result or product.

⁵ tn The word is in apposition to “incense,” further defining the kind of incense that is to be made.

⁶ tn The word מְמֻלָּח (mÿmullakh), a passive participle, is usually taken to mean “salted.” Since there is no meaning like that for the Pual form, the word probably should be taken as “mixed,” as in Rashi and Tg. Onq. Seasoning with salt would work if it were food, but since it is not food, if it means “salted” it would be a symbol of what was sound and whole for the covenant. Some have thought that it would have helped the incense burn quickly with more smoke.