Exodus 30: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD continues giving Moses instructions for the tabernacle and its worship: the gold-covered altar for burning incense and how Aaron is to use it, and a half-shekel payment each counted Israelite gives when a census is taken. He then orders a bronze basin for washing, a blend of spices and olive oil for the holy anointing oil, and a blend of spices for the holy incense. The anointing oil and the incense are set apart for the LORD, and anyone who copies either formula for ordinary use is to be cut off from his people.

Claim by Claim

1. 30:1
   • God commands Moses to make an altar for burning incense.
   • The altar is to be made of acacia wood.
2. 30:2
   • The altar is to be one cubit long.
   • The altar is to be one cubit wide.
   • The altar is to be square.
   • The altar is to be two cubits high.
   • The altar's horns are to be of one piece with it.
3. 30:3
   • The altar is to be overlaid with pure gold.
   • The gold overlay covers the altar's top.
   • The gold overlay covers the altar's sides all around.
   • The gold overlay covers the altar's horns.
   • A gold molding is to be made around the altar.
4. 30:4
   • Two gold rings are to be made for the altar.
   • The rings are to be placed under the molding.
   • The rings are to be on the altar's two sides, one on each of two opposite sides.
   • The rings are to serve as holders for poles.
   • The poles are for carrying the altar.
5. 30:5
   • The poles are to be made of acacia wood.
   • The poles are to be overlaid with gold.
6. 30:6
   • The altar is to be placed before the veil that is by the ark of the testimony.
   • The altar is to be placed before the mercy seat that is over the testimony.
   • God says he will meet with Moses there.
7. 30:7
   • Aaron is to burn fragrant incense on the altar.
   • Aaron is to burn it every morning.
   • Aaron is to burn the incense when he tends the lamps.
8. 30:8
   • Aaron is to burn the incense when he sets up the lamps at twilight.
   • The incense is to be a perpetual incense before the LORD.
   • This is to continue throughout the generations of the Israelites.
9. 30:9
   • No unauthorized incense is to be offered on the altar.
   • No burnt offering is to be offered on the altar.
   • No grain offering is to be offered on the altar.
   • No drink offering is to be poured on the altar.
10. 30:10
    • Aaron is to make atonement on the horns of the altar once a year.
    • The atonement is made with the blood of the sin offering of atonement.
    • He is to make atonement on it once a year throughout your generations.
    • The altar is most holy to the LORD.
11. 30:11
    • The LORD spoke to Moses.
12. 30:12
    • The command applies when Moses takes a census of the Israelites by counting them.
    • Each man is to give a ransom for his life to the LORD when he is counted.
    • The purpose is that no plague will come upon them when they are counted.
13. 30:13
    • Everyone who passes over to those counted is to give a half shekel.
    • The half shekel is measured by the sanctuary shekel.
    • A shekel is twenty gerahs.
    • The half shekel is an offering to the LORD.
14. 30:14
    • Everyone who passes over to those counted, from twenty years old and upward, is to give the LORD's offering.
15. 30:15
    • The rich are not to give more than the half shekel.
    • The poor are not to give less than the half shekel.
    • The offering is given to the LORD.
    • The offering makes atonement for your lives.
16. 30:16
    • Moses is to take the atonement money from the Israelites.
    • The money is to be assigned to the service of the tent of meeting.
    • The money is to be a memorial for the Israelites before the LORD.
    • The money makes atonement for your lives.
17. 30:17
    • The LORD spoke to Moses.
18. 30:18
    • A basin of bronze is to be made.
    • Its stand is to be of bronze.
    • The basin is for washing.
    • The basin is to be placed between the tent of meeting and the altar.
    • Water is to be put in the basin.
19. 30:19
    • Aaron and his sons are to wash from the basin.
    • They are to wash their hands and their feet.
20. 30:20
    • They are to wash with water when they enter the tent of meeting.
    • If they wash they will not die.
    • They are also to wash when they approach the altar to minister.
    • The ministering at the altar is to burn an offering made by fire to the LORD.
21. 30:21
    • They are to wash their hands and their feet.
    • If they wash they will not die.
    • This is to be a perpetual statute for them.
    • The statute applies to Aaron and to his descendants throughout their generations.
22. 30:22
    • The LORD spoke to Moses.
23. 30:23
    • Moses is to take the finest spices.
    • He is to take five hundred shekels of flowing myrrh.
    • He is to take fragrant cinnamon, half as much, two hundred fifty shekels.
    • He is to take two hundred fifty shekels of fragrant cane.
24. 30:24
    • He is to take five hundred shekels of cassia.
    • The weights are according to the sanctuary shekel.
    • He is to take a hin of olive oil.
25. 30:25
    • Moses is to make from these a holy anointing oil.
    • It is to be a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer.
    • It shall be a holy anointing oil.
26. 30:26
    • Moses is to anoint the tent of meeting with the oil.
    • Moses is to anoint the ark of the testimony with the oil.
27. 30:27
    • Moses is to anoint the table.
    • Moses is to anoint all the table's vessels.
    • Moses is to anoint the lampstand.
    • Moses is to anoint the lampstand's vessels.
    • Moses is to anoint the altar of incense.
28. 30:28
    • Moses is to anoint the altar of burnt offering.
    • Moses is to anoint all the vessels of the altar of burnt offering.
    • Moses is to anoint the basin.
    • Moses is to anoint the basin's stand.
29. 30:29
    • Moses is to consecrate these things.
    • They shall be most holy.
    • Whatever touches them shall become holy.
30. 30:30
    • Moses is to anoint Aaron and his sons.
    • Moses is to consecrate them.
    • They are consecrated to serve God as priests.
31. 30:31
    • Moses is to speak to the Israelites.
    • God says this shall be a holy anointing oil to him throughout your generations.
32. 30:32
    • The oil is not to be poured on human flesh.
    • No one is to make anything like it using its formula.
    • The oil is holy.
    • It shall be holy to you.
33. 30:33
    • Anyone who compounds anything like it shall be cut off from his people.
    • Anyone who puts any of it on an outsider shall be cut off from his people.
34. 30:34
    • The LORD said to Moses.
    • Moses is to take fragrant spices: stacte, onycha, and galbanum.
    • He is to take these spices with pure frankincense.
    • Each is to be in equal amount.
35. 30:35
    • Moses is to make from these an incense.
    • It is to be a blended perfume, the work of a perfumer.
    • It is to be salted, or blended, the term being ambiguous.
    • It is to be pure.
    • It is to be holy.
36. 30:36
    • Moses is to grind some of it very fine.
    • He is to put some of it before the testimony in the tent of meeting.
    • God says he will meet with Moses there.
    • The incense shall be most holy to you.
37. 30:37
    • The Israelites are not to make for themselves incense according to the formula of this incense.
    • It shall be holy to you for the LORD.
38. 30:38
    • Anyone who makes anything like it in order to smell it shall be cut off from his people.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

30:1

Incense is a mixture of fragrant gums and resins burned to produce sweet-smelling smoke; the recipe for this one is given in verses 34–38. The King James "shittim wood" is acacia, a hard, dense desert wood.

30:2

A cubit was roughly eighteen inches, about the length of a forearm, so the altar was about a foot and a half square and three feet high. The "horns" were four upward projections, one at each top corner, shaped like animal horns; blood was smeared on them in certain rituals (verse 10), and a person seeking protection could grab hold of them.

30:3

The King James "a crown of gold round about" does not mean a crown of the kind a king wears. It means a raised rim or decorative molding running around the top edge, which also kept objects from sliding off.

30:4

The "staves" are long poles. The altar was carried by poles so no one had to touch it.

30:6

The curtain (King James "vail") separated the innermost room of the tent from the outer room. The "ark of the testimony" was the gold-covered chest holding the stone tablets of the covenant, which are what "the testimony" refers to. The "mercy seat" was its lid, a slab of gold with two winged figures on it; the Hebrew word means a covering or a place where wrongdoing is wiped away.

30:7

The lamps are those of the seven-branched gold lampstand that stood in the same room. "Dresseth the lamps" in the King James means servicing them, trimming the wicks and topping up the oil.

30:8

"At even" means at dusk. "A perpetual incense" does not mean smoke rising every minute of the day; it means the incense was burned at fixed times, morning and evening, without the practice ever being dropped.

30:9

Three standard kinds of offering are ruled out here. A burnt sacrifice was an animal burned up entirely. A grain offering (King James "meat offering", "meat" in 1611 meant food of any kind, not flesh) was flour, oil and incense. A drink offering was wine poured out at the altar. "Strange incense" means incense of any recipe other than the one prescribed.

30:10

"Atonement" translates a Hebrew word meaning to wipe clean or cover over, canceling the effect of wrongdoing. A sin offering was an animal killed to remove ritual impurity. The once-a-year occasion is the Day of Atonement, described in Leviticus 16.

30:12

A census in this setting was chiefly a military muster, counting the men able to fight. A "ransom" is a payment made to release a life that is otherwise forfeit. The warning about plague reflects a widespread ancient sense that counting people put them at risk.

30:13

The shekel here is a unit of weight, not a coin, coined money did not yet exist. The "sanctuary shekel" was the standard weight kept at the sanctuary, about eleven or twelve grams of silver, so half a shekel is roughly a fifth of an ounce. A gerah was one-twentieth of that, the smallest weight in the system. "Crosses over to those being counted" is the Hebrew idiom for passing in front of the officials and being registered.

30:14

Twenty was the age at which an Israelite man counted as an adult for public purposes: liable for military service and included in the national count. Everyone in that bracket paid, regardless of rank.

30:16

The "Tent of Meeting" (King James "tabernacle of the congregation") is the portable sanctuary, a tent that could be dismantled and carried, so called because it was the place where God and Moses met.

30:18

The King James "laver" is a large basin. "Brass" in 1611 English covered copper alloys generally; the metal meant here is bronze. The altar mentioned is the large one for burnt offerings, which stood in the open courtyard outside the tent.

30:20

The washing here is ceremonial rather than about dirt: it marks the change from ordinary space to holy space. The repeated warning "that they die not" attaches a death penalty to skipping it, which is how the text signals that a boundary is absolute rather than a matter of preference.

30:21

A "statute" is a rule. "His seed" means his children, and their children after them.

30:23

The shekels here are weights, not coins: five hundred shekels is roughly twelve to fifteen pounds. Myrrh and cassia are aromatic gums and bark from trees; "sweet calamus" (fragrant cane) is a scented reed. All were expensive imported goods.

30:24

A hin was a liquid measure of about six quarts, roughly a gallon and a half.

30:25

Anointing means pouring or smearing oil on a person or object to mark it out for a particular use. "After the art of the apothecary" in the King James means made the way a professional perfumer would make it.

30:27

The table is the one that held the bread set out before God; "his vessels" in the King James means its vessels, the plates, dishes and jugs used with it. The "candlestick" is the seven-branched lampstand, which burned oil, not candles.

30:29

"Sanctify" means to set apart from ordinary use. The last clause is deliberately open in the Hebrew and has been read two ways: that whatever touches these objects becomes holy itself, or that only what is already holy may touch them.

30:30

"Consecrate" translates a Hebrew phrase that literally means "fill the hand", the standard expression for installing someone in priestly office.

30:32

The King James "upon man's flesh shall it not be poured" uses "man" to mean an ordinary person, anyone outside the priesthood. The point is that the oil marks out a specific office, so using it on anyone else empties the mark of meaning.

30:33

A "stranger" in the King James means an outsider, here, anyone not authorised to handle the oil. "Cut off from his people" is a set legal phrase whose exact force is disputed even among ancient interpreters: it may mean banishment from the community, death, or the ending of a person's family line.

30:34

These are aromatic gums and resins. Stacte is a fragrant gum, probably myrrh in its liquid form. Onycha is thought to be the burned shell-covering of a shellfish, which gives off a strong scent. Galbanum is a pungent, sharp-smelling resin. Frankincense is a pale resin that burns with a sweet smell; it was traded over long distances and was costly.

30:35

The King James "tempered together" and the modern "seasoned with salt" render one Hebrew word that can mean either mixed thoroughly or salted; translators are divided over which sense is meant.

30:36

"The testimony" is the pair of stone tablets recording the law, kept inside the ark, and the word is often used as shorthand for the ark that holds them. Grinding the incense to powder made it burn quickly and evenly.

30:38

"To smell thereto" means for the pleasure of its scent: that is, for ordinary private use. On "cut off from his people," see the note at verse 33.