Discovery BoxExodus 30:6-10
Context30:6 “You are to put it in front of the curtain that is before the ark of the testimony (before the atonement lid that is over the testimony), where I will meet you. 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. 30:10 Aaron is to make atonement on its horns once in the year with some of the blood of the sin offering for atonement; 4 once in the year 5 he is to make atonement on it throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.” 6
Exodus 30:34-38
Context30:34 The Lord said to Moses: “Take 7 spices, gum resin, 8 onycha, 9 galbanum, 10 and pure frankincense 11 of equal amounts 12 30:35 and make it into an incense, 13 a perfume, 14 the work of a perfumer. It is to be finely ground, 15 and pure and sacred. 30:36 You are to beat some of it very fine and put some of it before the ark of the testimony in the tent of meeting where I will meet with you; it is to be most holy to you. 30:37 And the incense that you are to make, you must not make for yourselves using the same recipe; it is to be most holy to you, belonging to the Lord. 30:38 Whoever makes anything like it, to use as perfume, 16 will be cut off from his people.”
Leviticus 10:1-2
Context10:1 Then 17 Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, each took his fire pan and put fire in it, set incense on it, and presented strange fire 18 before the Lord, which he had not commanded them to do. 10:2 So fire went out from the presence of the Lord 19 and consumed them so that they died before the Lord.
Leviticus 16:12-13
Context16:12 and take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord 20 and a full double handful of finely ground fragrant incense, 21 and bring them inside the veil-canopy. 22 16:13 He must then put the incense on the fire before the Lord, and the cloud of incense will cover the atonement plate which is above the ark of the testimony, 23 so that he will not die. 24
Numbers 16:16-18
Context16:16 Then Moses said to Korah, “You and all your company present yourselves before the Lord – you and they, and Aaron – tomorrow. 16:17 And each of you 25 take his censer, put 26 incense in it, and then each of you present his censer before the Lord: 250 censers, along with you, and Aaron – each of you with his censer.” 16:18 So everyone took his censer, put fire in it, and set incense on it, and stood at the entrance of the tent of meeting, with Moses and Aaron.
Numbers 16:35-40
Context16:35 Then a fire 27 went out from the Lord and devoured the 250 men who offered incense.
16:36 (17:1) 28 The Lord spoke to Moses: 16:37 “Tell 29 Eleazar son of Aaron the priest to pick up 30 the censers out of the flame, for they are holy, and then scatter the coals of fire 31 at a distance. 16:38 As for the censers of these men who sinned at the cost of their lives, 32 they must be made 33 into hammered sheets for covering the altar, because they presented them before the Lord and sanctified them. They will become a sign to the Israelites.” 16:39 So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers presented by those who had been burned up, and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar. 16:40 It was a memorial for the Israelites, that no outsider who is not a descendant of 34 Aaron should approach to burn incense before the Lord, that he might not become like Korah and his company – just as the Lord had spoken by the authority 35 of Moses.
Numbers 16:46-47
Context16:46 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Take the censer, put burning coals from the altar in it, place incense on it, and go quickly into the assembly and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone out from the Lord – the plague has begun!” 16:47 So Aaron did 36 as Moses commanded 37 and ran into the middle of the assembly, where the plague was just beginning among the people. So he placed incense on the coals and made atonement for the people.
Numbers 16:1
Context16:1 38 Now Korah son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth, who were Reubenites, 39 took men 40
Numbers 2:28
Context2:28 Those numbered in his division are 41,500.
Numbers 2:2
Context2:2 “Every one 41 of the Israelites must camp 42 under his standard with the emblems of his family; 43 they must camp at some distance 44 around the tent of meeting. 45
Numbers 26:18-21
Context26:18 These were the families of the Gadites according to those numbered of them, 40,500. 46
26:19 The descendants of Judah were Er and Onan, but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. 26:20 And the Judahites by their families were: from Shelah, the family of the Shelahites; from Perez, the family of the Perezites; and from Zerah, the family of the Zerahites. 26:21 And the Perezites were: from Hezron, the family of the Hezronites; from Hamul, 47 the family of the Hamulites.
Luke 1:9
Context1:9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, 48 to enter 49 the holy place 50 of the Lord and burn incense.
Revelation 8:3
Context8:3 Another 51 angel holding 52 a golden censer 53 came and was stationed 54 at the altar. A 55 large amount of incense was given to him to offer up, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar that is before the throne.
[30:7] 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.
[30:7] 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.
[30:7] 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.
[30:10] 4 tn The word “atonements” (plural in Hebrew) is a genitive showing the result or product of the sacrifice made.
[30:10] 5 sn This ruling presupposes that the instruction for the Day of Atonement has been given, or at the very least, is to be given shortly. That is the one day of the year that all sin and all ritual impurity would be removed.
[30:10] 6 sn The phrase “most holy to the
[30:34] 7 tn The construction is “take to you,” which could be left in that literal sense, but more likely the suffix is an ethical dative, stressing the subject of the imperative.
[30:34] 8 sn This is from a word that means “to drip”; the spice is a balsam that drips from a resinous tree.
[30:34] 9 sn This may be a plant, or it may be from a species of mollusks; it is mentioned in Ugaritic and Akkadian; it gives a pungent odor when burnt.
[30:34] 10 sn This is a gum from plants of the genus Ferula; it has an unpleasant odor, but when mixed with others is pleasant.
[30:34] 11 tn The word “spice is repeated here, suggesting that the first three formed half of the ingredient and this spice the other half – but this is conjecture (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 400).
[30:34] 12 tn Heb “of each part there will be an equal part.”
[30:35] 13 tn This is an accusative of result or product.
[30:35] 14 tn The word is in apposition to “incense,” further defining the kind of incense that is to be made.
[30:35] 15 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.
[30:38] 16 tn Or to smell it, to use for the maker’s own pleasure.
[10:1] 17 tn Although it has been used elsewhere in this translation as an English variation from the ubiquitous use of vav in Hebrew, in this instance “then” as a rendering for vav is intended to show that the Nadab and Abihu catastrophe took place on the inauguration day described in Lev 9. The tragic incident in Lev 10 happened in close temporal connection to the
[10:1] 18 tn The expression “strange fire” (אֵשׁ זָרָה, ’esh zarah) seems imprecise (cf. NAB “profane fire”; NIV “unauthorized fire”; NRSV “unholy fire”; NLT “a different kind of fire”) and has been interpreted numerous ways (see the helpful summary in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 132-33). The infraction may have involved any of the following or a combination thereof: (1) using coals from someplace other than the burnt offering altar (i.e., “unauthorized coals” according to J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:598; cf. Lev 16:12 and cf. “unauthorized person” אִישׁ זָר (’ish zar) in Num 16:40 [17:5 HT], NASB “layman”), (2) using the wrong kind of incense (cf. the Exod 30:9 regulation against “strange incense” קְטֹרֶת זָרָה (qÿtoreh zarah) on the incense altar and the possible connection to Exod 30:34-38), (3) performing an incense offering at an unprescribed time (B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 59), or (4) entering the Holy of Holies at an inappropriate time (Lev 16:1-2).
[10:2] 19 tn See the note on 9:24a.
[16:12] 20 tn Heb “and he shall take the fullness of the censer, coals of fire, from on the altar from to the faces of the
[16:12] 21 tn Heb “and the fullness of the hollow of his two hands, finely ground fragrant incense.”
[16:12] 22 tn Heb “and he shall bring from house to the veil-canopy.”
[16:13] 23 tn The text here has only “above the testimony,” but this is surely a shortened form of “above the ark of the testimony” (see Exod 25:22 etc.; cf. Lev 16:2). The term “testimony” in this expression refers to the ark as the container of the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments written on them (see Exod 25:16 with Deut 10:1, 5, etc.).
[16:13] 24 tn Heb “and he will not die,” but it is clear that the purpose for the incense cloud was to protect the priest from death in the presence of the
[16:17] 25 tn Heb “and take, a man, his censer.”
[16:17] 26 tn This verb and the following one are both perfect tenses with vav (ו) consecutives. Following the imperative they carry the same force, but in sequence.
[16:35] 27 tn For a discussion of the fire of the
[16:36] 28 sn Beginning with 16:36, the verse numbers through 17:13 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 16:36 ET = 17:1 HT, 16:37 ET = 17:2 HT, 17:1 ET = 17:16 HT, etc., through 17:13 ET = 17:28 HT. With 18:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same. But in the English chap. 17 there are two parts: Aaron’s rod budding (1-9), and the rod preserved as a memorial (10-13). Both sections begin with the same formula.
[16:37] 30 tn The verb is the jussive with a vav (ו) coming after the imperative; it may be subordinated to form a purpose clause (“that he may pick up”) or the object of the imperative.
[16:37] 31 tn The Hebrew text just has “fire,” but it would be hard to conceive of this action apart from the idea of coals of fire.
[16:38] 32 tn The expression is “in/by/against their life.” That they sinned against their life means that they brought ruin to themselves.
[16:38] 33 tn The form is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive. But there is no expressed subject for “and they shall make them,” and so it may be treated as a passive (“they shall [must] be made”).
[16:40] 34 tn Heb “from the seed of.”
[16:47] 37 tn Or “had spoken” (NASB); NRSV “had ordered.”
[16:1] 38 sn There are three main movements in the story of ch. 16. The first is the rebellion itself (vv. 1-19). The second is the judgment (vv. 20-35). Third is the atonement for the rebels (vv. 36-50). The whole chapter is a marvelous account of a massive rebellion against the leaders that concludes with reconciliation. For further study see G. Hort, “The Death of Qorah,” ABR 7 (1959): 2-26; and J. Liver, “Korah, Dathan and Abiram,” Studies in the Bible (ScrHier 8), 189-217.
[16:1] 39 tc The MT reading is plural (“the sons of Reuben”); the Smr and LXX have the singular (“the son of Reuben”).
[16:1] 40 tn In the Hebrew text there is no object for the verb “took.” The translation presented above supplies the word “men.” However, it is possible that the MT has suffered damage here. The LXX has “and he spoke.” The Syriac and Targum have “and he was divided.” The editor of BHS suggests that perhaps the MT should be emended to “and he arose.”
[2:2] 41 tn Heb “a man by his own standard.”
[2:2] 42 tn The imperfect tense is to be taken in the nuance of instruction.
[2:2] 43 tn Heb “of/for the house of their fathers.”
[2:2] 44 tn The Hebrew expression מִנֶּגֶד (minneged) means “from before” or “opposite; facing” and “at some distance” or “away from the front of” (see BDB 617 s.v. נֶגֶד 2.c.a; DCH 5:603-4 s.v. 3.b).
[2:2] 45 sn The Israelites were camping as a military camp, each tribe with the standards and emblems of the family. The standard was the symbol fastened to the end of a pole and carried to battle. It served to rally the tribe to the battle. The Bible nowhere describes these, although the serpent emblem of Numbers 21:8-9 may give a clue. But they probably did not have shapes of animals in view of the prohibition in the Decalogue. The standards may have been smaller for the families than the ones for the tribes. See further K. A. Kitchen, “Some Egyptian Background to the Old Testament,” TynBul 5 (1960): 11; and T. W. Mann, Divine Presence and Guidance in Israelite Tradition, 169-73.
[26:18] 46 sn The Gadites decreased from 45,650 to 40,500.
[26:21] 47 tc Smr and the Greek version have “Hamuel.”
[1:9] 48 tn Grk “according to the custom of the priesthood it fell to him by lot.” The order of the clauses has been rearranged in the translation to make it clear that the prepositional phrase κατὰ τὸ ἔθος τῆς ἱερατείας (kata to eqo" th" Jierateia", “according to the custom of the priesthood”) modifies the phrase “it fell to him by lot” rather than the preceding clause.
[1:9] 49 tn This is an aorist participle and is temporally related to the offering of incense, not to when the lot fell.
[1:9] 50 tn Or “temple.” Such sacrifices, which included the burning of incense, would have occurred in the holy place according to the Mishnah (m. Tamid 1.2; 3.1; 5-7). A priest would have given this sacrifice, which was offered for the nation, once in one’s career. It would be offered either at 9 a.m. or 3 p.m., since it was made twice a day.
[8:3] 51 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
[8:3] 53 sn A golden censer was a bowl in which incense was burned. The imagery suggests the OT role of the priest.
[8:3] 54 tn The verb “to station” was used to translate ἑστάθη (Jestaqh) because it connotes the idea of purposeful arrangement in English, which seems to be the idea in the Greek.
[8:3] 55 tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation. Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
