and you shall make incense of it, a perfume after the art of the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy:
Parallel translations
- KJV And thou shalt make it a perfume, a confection after the art of the apothecary, tempered together, pure and holy:
- BSB and make a fragrant blend of incense, the work of a perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy.
- NKJV You shall make of these an incense, a compound according to the art of the perfumer, salted, pure, and holy.
- NASB You shall make incense from it all, a skillful mixture, the work of a perfumer, salted, pure, and holy.
- NLT Using the usual techniques of the incense maker, blend the spices together and sprinkle them with salt to produce a pure and holy incense.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The spices were blended into pure, holy incense, seasoned with salt. The incense of worship was to be pure, lasting, and set apart.
Overview
Skillfully compounded and seasoned with salt, the incense was both pure and enduring, fit for God's presence. Salt often signified covenant permanence and preservation. This holy incense pictures the worship and prayer of God's covenant people, kept pure and pleasing through Christ (Colossians 4:6; Psalm 141:2).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Lev 2:13Every offering of your meal offering you shall season with salt. You shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your meal offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt.
- Exod 30:25You shall make it a holy anointing oil, a perfume compounded after the art of the perfumer: it shall be a holy anointing oil.
- Song 1:3Your oils have a pleasing fragrance. Your name is oil poured out, therefore the virgins love you.
- John 12:3Mary, therefore, took a pound of ointment of pure nard, very precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment.
- Prov 27:9Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart; so does earnest counsel from a man’s friend.
- Song 3:6Who is this who comes up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all spices of the merchant?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Passover lamb whose blood turns away death, the exodus through the sea, the manna, the rock, and the tabernacle where God dwells with his people all foreshadow Jesus — our Passover, our redemption, the bread from heaven, and God-with-us in the flesh.
How Exodus 30:35 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.