Bible Commentaries

Exodus 30:6-10

The altar of incense was made of acacia wood, and stood about a yard high and eighteen inches square. Incense was burnt upon it every morning and evening, and it was used for this purpose only. The altar and incense were symbolic—

I. Of the prayers of God's people. (1) In prayer we speak to God and tell Him the thoughts of our minds, the feelings of our hearts, the desires of our spirits. The incense smoke ascended, arrow-like, in a straight and most direct column to heaven. Our prayers ascend immediately and in the directest way to the heart and ear of God. (2) In prayer we stand very near God. The altar of incense was placed "before the mercy-seat." (3) The pleasant odour of the incense is symbolic of the acceptableness of prayer.

II. Of intelligent, unceasing, and reverent prayer. (1) The burning of incense is intelligent prayer. It took place in the light, and our prayers should be presented to God intelligently. (2) Unceasing prayer. It was a perpetual incense before the Lord. (3) Reverent prayer. "Ye shall burn no strange incense thereon; it is most holy unto the Lord."

III. Of prayer offered in Christ's name. Aaron sprinkled the golden horns with the blood of atonement. This act is typical of the offering of prayer in the name of Christ.

IV. Of the power of prayer. The horns of the altar symbolise power. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."

D. Rhys Jenkins, The Eternal Life, p. 387.

Reference: Exodus 30:7, Exodus 30:8.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxix., No. 1710.

Exodus 30:8

This altar of incense had a very distinct meaning, and there are large lessons to be drawn from it.

I. The incense is a lovely, significant, and instructive symbol of prayer. (1) It teaches that prayer is the ascent of a man's soul to God. (2) That the prayer which ascends must be the prayer that comes from a fire. (3) The kindled incense gave forth fragrant odours. When we present our poor prayers, they rise up acceptable to God in curling wreaths of fragrance that He delights in and that He accepts.

II. Notice the position of the altar of incense in relation to the rest of the sanctuary. It stood in the holy place, midway between the outer court, where the whole assembly of worshippers were in the habit of meeting, and the holiest of all, where the high-priest alone went once a year. Whoever approached the altar of incense had to pass by the altar of sacrifice, and whoever was on his way to the holiest of all had to pass by the altar of incense. These things teach us these plain lessons: (1) That all prayer must be preceded by the perfect sacrifice, and that our prayers must be offered on the footing of the perfect sacrifice which Christ Himself has offered. (2) That there is no true fellowship and communion of spirit with God except on condition of habitual prayer, and they that are strangers to the one are strangers to the other.

III. The offering was perpetual. Morning and evening the incense was piled up and blown into a flame, and all the day and night it smouldered quietly on the altar; that is to say, special seasons and continual devotion, morning and evening kindled, heaped up, and all the day and night glowing.

IV. Once a year Aaron had to offer a sacrifice of expiation for this altar that bore the perpetual incense. Even our prayers are full of imperfections and sins, which need cleansing and forgiveness by the great High-priest.

A. Maclaren, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. v., p. 234

Reference: Exodus 30:11-16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1581

Exodus 30:12

The word which is here rendered "ransom" is afterwards rendered "atonement." The atonement covered or removed what displeased God, and thus sanctified for His service. Our notion of atonement under the law should ordinarily be limited to the removal of the temporal consequences of moral or ceremonial defilement.

The sum of half a shekel was the tax that every man had to pay as his ransom, and as this is the single instance in the Jewish law in which an offering of money is commanded, it seems highly probable that it was not a ransom for the soul so much as a ransom for the life which the Israelite made when he paid his half-shekel. On all occasions in which the soul, the immortal principle, is undeniably concerned, the appointed offerings are strictly sacrificial.

Consider:—

I. The ransom for the life. Our human lives are forfeited to God; we have not accomplished the great end of our being, and therefore we deserve every moment to die. The Israelites paid their tax as a confession that life had beneforfeited, and as an acknowledgment that its continuance depended wholly on God. We cannot give the half-shekel payment, but we should have before us the practical remembrance that in God's hand is the soul of every living thing.

II. The rich and the poor were to pay just the same sum. This was a clear and unqualified declaration that in the sight of God the distinctions of rank and estate are altogether as nothing; that, whilst He gathers the whole human race under His guardianship, there is no difference in the watchfulness which extends itself to the several individuals.

III. If we understand the word "soul" in the ordinary sense, the text is a clear indication that God values at the same rate the souls of all human beings. Every soul has been redeemed at the price of the blood of God's Son; the Mediator died that the soul might live; and if rich and poor acknowledge by a tribute that from God is the life of the soul, it is right that they should acknowledge it by the same tribute. Rich and poor must offer the same atonement for the soul.

H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2566.

References: Exodus 30:19.—Parker, vol. ii., p. 321. Exodus 30:22-38.—B. Isaac, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 395. Exodus 31:1-6.—J. Spencer Bartlett, Sermons, p. 284. Exodus 31:1-11.—Parker, vol. ii., p. 251. Exodus 31:6.—J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. ii., p. 368.