Incense

An expensive resin from southern Arabia and the fragrant aroma it emits when offered in worship ritual. It is also called frankincense.

Regulations governing the offering of incense

The priest was to keep incense burning on the altar daily

2 Chronicles 13:11 See also Exodus 30:7–9; Numbers 4:16; Deuteronomy 33:10; 1 Samuel 2:28; 1 Chronicles 6:49, 1 Chronicles 9:29; Luke 1:9

Every morning and every evening they present burnt offerings and fragrant incense to the LORD. They set out the rows of showbread on the ceremonially clean table, and every evening they light the lamps of the gold lampstand. We are carrying out the requirements of the LORD our God, while you have forsaken Him.

The LORD also said to Moses, “Take fragrant spices — gum resin, onycha, galbanum, and pure frankincense — in equal measures, and make a fragrant blend of incense, the work of a perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy. Grind some of it into fine powder and place it in front of the Testimony in the Tent of Meeting, where I will meet with you. It shall be most holy to you. You are never to use this formula to make incense for yourselves; you shall regard it as holy to the LORD. Anyone who makes something like it to enjoy its fragrance shall be cut off from his people.”

Occasions for offering incense

At the setting up of the tabernacle: Exodus 39:38, Exodus 40:5, Exodus 40:26–27; Leviticus 2:1–2, Leviticus 2:15–16, Leviticus 6:15; Leviticus 5:11 not to accompany a sin offering; Leviticus 16:12 on the Day of Atonement; Leviticus 24:7 to accompany bread and oil; Numbers 7:86 As part of the offerings at the dedication of the tabernacle, each leader presented a golden incense dish.

The altar of incense

Exodus 30:1 See also Exodus 30:27, Exodus 31:8, Exodus 31:11, Exodus 35:15, Exodus 37:25–29; 1 Chronicles 28:18

“You are also to make an altar of acacia wood for the burning of incense.

Burning incense to foreign gods

Incense offered to other gods will not bring answers to prayer

Jeremiah 11:12, Jeremiah 44:23

Israel disobeyed the LORD's commands

Jeremiah 7:9–10 See also Jeremiah 18:15, Jeremiah 19:13, Jeremiah 32:29, Jeremiah 44:5; Ezekiel 16:18–19, Ezekiel 20:28; Hosea 11:2

Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before Me in this house, which bears My Name, and say, ‘We are delivered, so we can continue with all these abominations’?

The practice continued under successive kings

In the early days of Solomon's reign: 1 Kings 3:3, 1 Kings 11:8; 1 Kings 22:43 Jehoshaphat; 2 Kings 12:3 Joash; 2 Kings 14:4 Amaziah; 2 Kings 15:4 Azariah; 2 Kings 15:35 Jotham; 2 Kings 16:4 parallel 2 Chronicles 28:4 Ahaz

It provoked God's anger

Jeremiah 44:3 See also 2 Kings 22:17; Isaiah 65:3; Jeremiah 1:16, Jeremiah 11:17, Jeremiah 44:5, Jeremiah 44:8, Jeremiah 44:21, Jeremiah 48:35; Hosea 2:13

because of the evil they have done. They provoked Me to anger by continuing to burn incense and to serve other gods that neither they nor you nor your fathers ever knew.