Keluaran 30:7-10

30:7 Aaron is to burn sweet incense ¹  on it morning by morning; when he attends ²  to the lamps he is to burn incense. ³  30:8 When Aaron sets up the lamps around sundown he is to burn incense on it; it is to be a regular incense offering before the Lord throughout your generations. 30:9 You must not offer strange incense on it, nor burnt offering, nor meal offering, and you must not pour out a drink offering on it. 30:10 Aaron is to make atonement on its horns once in the year with some of the blood of the sin offering for atonement; ⁴  once in the year ⁵  he is to make atonement on it throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord.” ⁶ 

Imamat 16:11-16

The Sin Offering Sacrificial Procedures

16:11 “Aaron is to present the sin offering bull which is for himself, and he is to make atonement on behalf of himself and his household. He is to slaughter the sin offering bull which is for himself, 16:12 and take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord ⁷  and a full double handful of finely ground fragrant incense, ⁸  and bring them inside the veil-canopy. ⁹  16:13 He must then put the incense on the fire before the Lord, and the cloud of incense will cover the atonement plate which is above the ark of the testimony, ¹⁰  so that he will not die. ¹¹  16:14 Then he is to take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the eastern face of the atonement plate, ¹²  and in front of the atonement plate he is to sprinkle some of the blood seven times with his finger. ¹³ 

16:15 “He must then slaughter the sin offering goat which is for the people. He is to bring its blood inside the veil-canopy, ¹⁴  and he is to do with its blood just as he did to the blood of the bull: He is to sprinkle it on the atonement plate and in front of the atonement plate. 16:16 So ¹⁵  he is to make atonement for the holy place from the impurities of the Israelites and from their transgressions with regard to all their sins, ¹⁶  and thus he is to do for the Meeting Tent which resides with them in the midst of their impurities.

Imamat 16:1

The Day of Atonement

16:1 The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of Aaron’s two sons when they approached the presence of the Lord ¹⁷  and died,

Yohanes 2:1-2

Turning Water into Wine

2:1 Now on the third day there was a wedding at Cana ¹⁸  in Galilee. ¹⁹  Jesus’ mother ²⁰  was there, 2:2 and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. ²¹ 

[30:7]  ¹ tn The text uses a cognate accusative (“incense”) with the verb “to burn” or “to make into incense/sweet smoke.” Then, the noun “sweet spices” is added in apposition to clarify the incense as sweet.

[30:7]  ² tn The Hebrew is בְּהֵיטִיבוֹ (bÿhetivo), a Hiphil infinitive construct serving in a temporal clause. The Hebrew verb means “to make good” and so in this context “to fix” or “to dress.” This refers to cleansing and trimming the lamps.

[30:7]  ³ sn The point of the little golden altar of incense is normally for intercessory prayer, and then at the Day of Atonement for blood applied atonement. The instructions for making it show that God wanted his people to make a place for prayer. The instructions for its use show that God expects that the requests of his people will be pleasing to him.

[30:10]  ⁴ tn The word “atonements” (plural in Hebrew) is a genitive showing the result or product of the sacrifice made.

[30:10]  ⁵ sn This ruling presupposes that the instruction for the Day of Atonement has been given, or at the very least, is to be given shortly. That is the one day of the year that all sin and all ritual impurity would be removed.

[30:10]  ⁶ sn The phrase “most holy to the Lord” means that the altar cannot be used for any other purpose than what is stated here.

[16:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “and he shall take the fullness of the censer, coals of fire, from on the altar from to the faces of the Lord.”

[16:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “and the fullness of the hollow of his two hands, finely ground fragrant incense.”

[16:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “and he shall bring from house to the veil-canopy.”

[16:13]  ¹⁰ tn The text here has only “above the testimony,” but this is surely a shortened form of “above the ark of the testimony” (see Exod 25:22 etc.; cf. Lev 16:2). The term “testimony” in this expression refers to the ark as the container of the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments written on them (see Exod 25:16 with Deut 10:1, 5, etc.).

[16:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and he will not die,” but it is clear that the purpose for the incense cloud was to protect the priest from death in the presence of the Lord (cf. vv. 1-2 above).

[16:14]  ¹² tn Heb “on the faces of the atonement plate toward the east.” Some have taken this to mean that the ark was stationed just behind the veil-canopy on the eastern side of the most holy place. Thus, the high priest would need to enter and walk toward the west end of the most holy place and then turn eastward in order to face the ark and sprinkle the blood in an eastward direction. The rendering here, however, requires that the ark was stationed on the western end, or perhaps in the middle of the area, so that as the priest entered he was already facing the ark and would sprinkle the blood on the eastern face of the atonement plate, in a westward direction (see, e.g., J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 239 versus J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:1032).

[16:14]  ¹³ sn Presumably in this case the blood was sprinkled seven times on the ground in front of the ark on which the atonement plate was mounted.

[16:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and he shall bring its blood into from house to the veil-canopy.”

[16:16]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative or even inferential force here.

[16:16]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “to all their sins.”

[16:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in their drawing near to the faces of the Lord.” The rendering here relies on the use of this expression for the very “presence” of God in Exod 33:14-15 and in the Lev 9:24-10:2 passage, where the Nadab and Abihu catastrophe referred to here is narrated.

[2:1]  ¹⁸ map For location see Map1 C3; Map2 D2; Map3 C5.

[2:1]  ¹⁹ sn Cana in Galilee was not a very well-known place. It is mentioned only here, in 4:46, and 21:2, and nowhere else in the NT. Josephus (Life 16 [86]) says he once had his quarters there. The probable location is present day Khirbet Cana, 8 mi (14 km) north of Nazareth, or Khirbet Kenna, 4 mi (7 km) northeast of Nazareth.

[2:1]  ²⁰ tn Grk “in Galilee, and Jesus’ mother.”

[2:2]  ²¹ sn There is no clue to the identity of the bride and groom, but in all probability either relatives or friends of Jesus’ family were involved, since Jesus’ mother and both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the celebration. The attitude of Mary in approaching Jesus and asking him to do something when the wine ran out also suggests that familial obligations were involved.