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Which had the golden censer; in the holy of holiest was reserved the golden censer, on which the high priest put the incense when annually he entered there, {see Lev_16:12,13} that the cloud of it might cover the mercy-seat, and so was kept for that service in it: see Joseph. Antiq. lib. 3. 7. Many would refer this to the golden altar of incense that stood before the veil in the holy place, Exo_30:6-8; and so they read it, having the golden altar of incense before it for its service, and not within it; signifying the Godhead, by which Christ maketh his intercession, sanctifying and perfuming his own, and all offerings made in his name.
And the ark of the covenant; it was a coffer or chest of shittim wood, plated all over with gold, Exo_25:10-22 37:1,6 40:20,21. This chest had for its cover a mercy-seat, listed or verged with a crown of gold round it; and is called the ark of the covenant, because the tables of testimony were laid up in it, Exo_25:16 40:20; those two stone tables wrought by Moses, and carried up into the mount, (after he had on the idolatry of Israel broken those of God’s own making, and on which God had written the ten laws, the terms of his covenant with them), on which God wrote afresh his laws, and renewed his covenant with them, Exo_34:1,2,28,29; compare Exo_31:18. This ark was a type of Christ interposing between God and us, who had broken the covenant of his laws.
Wherein was the golden pot that had manna; en h, wherein, refers not to the ark mentioned just before, for in it was nothing pnt but the two tables of the covenant; but the tabernacle, called the holy of holiest, in which was reserved the golden censer, pot of manna, provided by God’s charge before the giving of the law, and laid up afterwards in that archive by God’s order, Exo_16:32-34. This manna was the bread God fed Israel in his church with forty years in the wilderness, and is called angels’ food, Psa_78:25; a type of Christ the true bread, that God gave from heaven to his church, Joh_6:31-58.
And Aaron’s rod that budded; which was by God’s order put before the testimony in the holy of holiest, and not into the ark, for it was to be in view there as a token of the true priesthood, the type of Christ’s, against all after-murmurers and usurpers: see Num_17:1-11.
And the tables of the covenant; and as these, the urn of manna and rod of Aaron, were in the holy of holiest; so especially the two tables of the covenant were there too, but laid up in the ark which was in that place: see 1Ki_8:9 2Ch_5:10. Oters think the preposition en is to be read, by which, or about, near which ark, as it is used of Christ’s sitting en dezia, Heb_1:3; and so notes, as to the pot of manna and Aaron’s rod, an apposition of them to or by the ark, when the tables of the covenant were undeniably put into it.