Exodus 30 Study Notes

30:1-5 Incense is a picture of prayer (Ps 141:2; Rv 5:8; 8:3-4).

30:6-8 The incense altar was to be positioned in the holy place in the center of the veil.

30:9 The other offerings mentioned were to be made outside the holy place, at the altar for burnt offerings.

30:10 To perform the atonement ceremony involved putting blood on the horns of the incense altar on the Day of Atonement (Lv 16:16-20).

30:11-16 The motive for taking a census was typically military (Nm 1:2-3,20-45; Jdg 20:2,15-17). The need to pay a ransom, also called a contribution, of half a shekel each in order to avert a plague reminded everyone that the nation as a whole and its citizens belonged to the Lord. Their preservation depended ultimately on him, not their military strength, wealth, or poverty (12:13; 15:26; 17:8-16; Nm 8:19).

30:13 At the time of Moses, a shekel was a measure of weight. Measuring according to the sanctuary may mean that this weight was different from the one commonly used in scales (Gn 23:16) or that the sanctuary was the center for a system of standardizing weights.

30:17-21 The bronze wash basin was much smaller than the huge bronze lavers in Solomon’s temple. Note how important cleanliness was considered.

30:22-38 The oil and incense for the tabernacle required costly ingredients and expert knowledge to compound them properly. Myrrh came from the sap of a tree found in Arabia and Ethiopia. Cinnamon came from the bark of a tree grown in Ceylon and Malaysia. Cassia may have come from a type of tree bark. Stacte is a transliterated Greek term used for different varieties of tree and plant sap. Onycha, based on an Arabic word, may have come from a type of mollusk. Galbanum came from the sap of a plant grown in Afghanistan and Persia. Frankincense also came from sap and could be imported from Arabia or Ethiopia.