Altar of Incense - Exodus 30:1-10

30:1-10 - Now God starts instructing Moses on the design, purpose, and use of the different objects that are to be used inside the tabernacle. The first is “an altar to burn incense upon.” This is different than the altar for animal sacrifice that’s used outside of the tabernacle, but there are some similarities. It’s built different for a different purpose, but there was one thing that I saw that I thought was really powerful. The social media algorithm is really interesting and I’ve been trying to shape mine to show me things that are less political and rage inducing and there are so many interesting things out there. For instance, I ended up on like “Old testament” side of Instagram and there were multiple people who were talking about different things in in Exodus which was very specific but I appreciated it very much.

One of the guy’s videos that I saw was him explaining the alters and he noted that with the gold overlay and how it was designed, the altars would have weighed 1,800 to 3,000 pound and was meant to be carried from place to place manually by four Levite priests. His point was that even with 4 really strong men, it would have been almost impossible for these 4 men to hand carry the altar the whole way that they were required to. So he suggested that it was only through the strength of God that these men would have been able to complete their task. Likewise he said that there were a lot of aspects to our own lives that we aren’t able to do ourselves and it is only through the strength and power of God that we are able to accomplish these hard things. I thought that that was a very powerful and practical application for our day.

It was upon this altar that Aaron and their priests were to burn incense “every morning” representing the prayers of the people ascending up to God all day every day. This incense was a special blend that the Israelites were not allowed to buy from outside sources, it had to be made by them personally. There was also to be no meat or drink offering or a burnt sacrifice. Interestingly, I heard something yesterday about the significance of a burnt offering, and it was in reference to Lehi offering a burnt sacrifice to God while he was with his family out in the desert. The significant part was the suggestion that during a burnt offering, the whole animal was consumed by fire, there was to be nothing left over or saved to be used for any other purpose. This means that the meat couldn’t be eaten or the skins used for clothes, etc.

Every single speck of existence for that animal was to be burnt up, meaning that it was a total, infinite sacrifice. There could be no benefit to anyone outside of the what that sacrifice itself provided. It had to consume the whole animal with no outside benefit to any other person. Similarly, the atonement consumed all of Jesus, and it covered everyone and everything. He speaker compared it to tithing, like when you pay tithing, it isn’t so that you can like get a discount on something or you get goods or services or anything like that. You pay tithing and give that money to God with no expectation of getting anything benefifical back. When Christ performed the atonement, he didn’t do it because he expected something in return, he didn’t think he was getting praise or glory or anything like that back. He did it to save us with no expectation of anything else. These animals were sacrificed as a similitude to save us and there was no other benefit to anyone else. It was interesting.