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The Altar of Incense –מזבח הקטרת
1 x 1 x 2
Exodus 30:1-10 “You shall make an altar on which to burn incense. You shall make it of acacia wood. 2 A cubit shall be its length, and a cubit its breadth. It shall be square, and two cubits shall be its height. Its horns shall be of one piece with it. 3 You shall overlay it with pure gold, its top and around its sides and its horns. And you shall make a molding of gold around it. 4 And you shall make two golden rings for it. Under its molding on two opposite sides of it you shall make them, and they shall be holders for poles with which to carry it. 5 You shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. 6 And you shall put it in front of the Parochet that is by the Ark of the Testimony, in front of the Cover that is on the Testimony, where I will meet with you. 7 And Aaron shall burn fragrant incense on it. Every morning when he dresses the lamps he shall burn it, 8 and when Aaron sets up the lamps at twilight, he shall burn it, a regular incense offering before Adonai throughout your generations. 9 You shall not offer alien incense on it, or a burnt offering, or a grain offering, and you shall not pour a drink offering on it. 10 Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year. With the blood of the sin offering of atonement he shall make atonement for it once in the year throughout your generations. It is most holy to Adonai.”
Revelation 5:8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. [+ 8:3-4]
“Incense” = קטרת
ק – קדושה = “Holiness”
ט – טהרה = “Purity”
ר – רחמים = “Mercy”
ת – תקוה = “Hope”
Leviticus 16:12-13 And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before Adonai, and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small, and he shall bring it inside the veil, and put the incense on the fire before Adonai, that the cloud of the incense may cover the Ark cover that is over the testimony, so that he does not die.
Hebrews 9:6-7 These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, but into the second only the High Priest goes, and he but once a year …
The Incense –קטרת
Exodus 30:34-38 Adonai said to Moses, “Take for yourself spices – stacte, and onycha, and galbanum – spices with pure frankincense: all of equal amounts, and make an incense – the work of a perfumer – seasoned with salt, pure and holy. You shall grind some of it very small and put part of it before the testimony in the tent of meeting where I shall meet with you. It shall be holy of holies for you. And the incense that you shall make according to its proportion, you shall not make for yourselves. It shall be for you holy to Adonai. Whoever makes any like it to smell it shall be cut off from his people.”
Then …
The Description of the Tabernacle begins with the Ark and ends with the Incense.
Pairs of Furnishings:
Ark – Ark Cover
Table of Showbread – Menorah
Outer Altar – Laver
BUT WHAT IS THE GOLDEN ALTAR’S “MATE”?
The golden altar of incense: 1 x 1 x 2
The art of the covenant: 1½ x 1½ x 2½
Acts 17:28 “For in Him we live and move and have our being…”
Romans 11:36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things..
John 17:21,23 “That they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me … I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me.”
“It is only out of a great kindness on the part of the Almighty that one remains alive after prayer.” – Baal Shem Tov
Q: Why was the incense altar not located at the entrance of the Tabernacle?
REFERENCES:
Revelation 8:3-4 And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the holy ones on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the holy ones, rose before God from the hand of the angel.
The prayer preceding all prayers is “May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.” – C.S. Lewis
Any work, any exertion of effort, and any praying is possible only if the Creator is concealed from human beings. – R’ Michael Laitman
If a dead person were allowed back into this world to pray, he would definitely pray most beautifully, with all his strength. – R’ Nachman
Leviticus 10:1-2 Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered strange fire (אש זרה, eish zarah) before Adonai, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from before Adonai and consumed them, and they died before Adonai.
Exodus 12:6 And you shall keep [the Passover lamb] until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight [בין הערבים, bein ha’ar’bim, lit. “between the evenings”]. [1st occ.]
