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“You shall put this altar in front of the veil that is near the ark of the testimony, in front of the mercy seat that is over the ark of the testimony, where I will meet with you.” (Ex. 30:6)
The mercy seat or atonement seat on the Ark is all about covering, about the Day of Covering.
The altar right in front of the veil was not used for animal or food offerings. Only incense was burned on it and only the kind of incense God told him to use.
“Aharon (Aaron) shall make atonement on its horns once a year; he shall make atonement on it with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once a year throughout your generations. It is most holy to the LORD.” (Ex. 30:10)
The incense is very important to God that it was done twice a day.
Then there’s this seemingly random comment in Ex. 30:11-17 about the half-shekel census, but this was to be done every Day of Atonement. This was not a voluntary census but a mandatory one of all the men above the age of 20 and everyone paid the same amount of money whether rich or poor. The half-shekel was the small unit of coinage at the time. Women and children under 20 were not counted.
Yeshua said his “yoke is easy” and “burden is light” (Mt. 11:30). Moshe even tells that the Torah is easy to do, yet it is man that has made it difficult.
This is not written just so God could keep the priest busy. God did all of this to show us a glimpse of Himself, His son and His dwelling place.
Incense has a sweet, pleasant aroma and represents the prayers of the saints (Rev. 8:3). What are the prayers of the saints about? Are they about pain, suffering and negativity? It’s the broken and contrite spirit that pleases God. From that point on, your prayers are different. When you really come to him contrite, broken and repentant, when you accept His atonement. That is what He wants to hear the most. Yeshua’s sacrifice covers up all sin and just a small piece of silver was how the people told God that they accepted all He did for them.
We all want to live in a place that is physically and spiritually safe. The Garden of Eden was the physically safe place (Genesis 1-3). The Shabbat, which He made on the seventh day, was the spiritually safe place (Gen. 2:2-3). God created light and order from darkness and chaos, and God was pleased with the result.
In Ex. 30:22-29 Moshe is to make a specific recipe for anointing all to anoint all the elements of the tabernacle, including the altars, the lavers, the lamp-stand. Then Moshe had to consecrate Aharon and his sons as well.
Yeshua as our High Priest has shown us what God wants of us just as Aharon and the priests had to teach the people what God found acceptable.
Why can’t we make these anointing oils for ourselves? The incense recipe in Ex. 30:34 have some ingredients we can only guess that these plants actually were because Biblical Hebrew and Septuagint Greek are dead languages. I am not really concerned about these ingredients were, I’m more concerned about what these were used for. These incenses were for the Temple and for God’s home not for the people or their homes. They weren’t mean for man to own. We can’t claim what belongs to God for ourselves.
When we talk about anointing in 1st John (1st John 2:20, 27), that is the Holy Spirit separating His children from the world.
Reader: Sean. Speaker: Richard. Summary: Tammy.
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