Whosoever shall make like unto that, to smell thereto, shall even be cut off from his people.
God Himself appointed the spices and their quantities because nothing comes to Him but what comes from Him; the oil was compounded with exact art, infused, strained, and left sweetly fragrant for the tent and all its furniture, and for consecrating the priests in their generations.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 30:22-38
A man may compound the exact same perfume with identical ingredients, but the law turns on his purpose: if he makes it for his own pleasure to smell, he is cut off from his people. The distinction is not the thing itself but the use of it.
AI summary
These four substances, storax gum, onycha from a shell-fish, galbanum from the ferula shrub, and frankincense from an Arabian tree, were mixed in equal parts, each ingredient first prepared separately before combining all four together into the holy incense.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 30:34-38