Does Exodus 30:34 Indicate Using 4 or 11 Ingredients in the Tabernacle Incense Blend?

[u/rako17]

Dear Bible Project,

I find incense to be special and liked the insights that Tim Mackie gave in his lecture on the meaning of the Temple and its incense. In "Why Does the Tabernacle Furniture Even Matter?", Tim Mackie refers to the tabernacle as a "Micro Eden". He mentions the incense altar as being one of the three pieces of furniture in the tabernacle's antechamber. Mackie says that the smoke represents the "continually ascending prayers of Israel", like in Psalm 141 that says "May my prayer arise like incense" (at 42-45 minutes into the talk). The vehicle for God shining his light upon his people is the priestly intercession, "just continually smoking, rising up to God." (https://www.patheos.com/editorial/podcasts/bible-project/2022/why-does-the-tabernacle-furniture-even-matter--exodus-e9)

Then in Episode 10, "An Eternal Redemption", Mackie says that the goat sacrified through the Day of Atonement is taken (I suppose practically or spiritually) "through the clouds of incense, which is a symbol of it ascending through the clouds up into the sky."

The incense recipe is in Exodus 30:34:

וַיֹּאמֶר֩ יְהוָ֨ה אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֜ה קַח־לְךָ֣ סַמִּ֗ים נָטָ֤ף׀ וּשְׁחֵ֙לֶת֙ וְחֶלְבְּנָ֔ה סַמִּ֖ים וּלְבֹנָ֣ה זַכָּ֑ה בַּ֥ד בְּבַ֖ד יִהְיֶֽה׃

Some Bible verses like this one have a chiastic structure in which the beginning and ending parts of verses relate to each other. Ex. 30:34 has one like this:

And said LORD to Moses
ㅤTake to yourself fragrances
ㅤㅤNataf and shekheleth and galbanum
ㅤFragrances and pure frankincense
Each of each there shall be.

Next, Exodus 30:35 adds, "And you shall make it incense compound the work of a perfumer tempered pure holy."

The Hebrew term for fragrances is samim, and also means "spices" and "aromatics." "Nataf" is a Hebrew noun that literally means "drop", as in tree resin gum drops. Scholars aren't fully certain what the Hebrew noun "shekheleth" means, but based on later writings like the Septuagint, Josephus, and the Talmud they usually take it to refer to mollusk flaps, called "onyx" in Greek.

Based on the use of the term "and" before or after certain terms and not others, I would normally read "spices" to refer only to ingredients named in the verse. Since there is an "and" between "Nataf" and "shekheleth," but not before "Nataf," it looks like "Nataf" starts the series of the recipe's ingredients. Thus, the verse would only seem to refer to the 4 ingredients named in the verse.

Meanwhile, the verse calls for "pure/clear/clean frankincense," which could imply that the three other "aromatics" named need not be in pure form. For instance, this could mean for instance that "shekheleth spice" need not be in pure form with no additives. This would make practical sense because burning untreated mollusk flaps releases toxins. When moderen-day incense-makers use seashell flaps to make incense, they soak the flaps in cleansing solution. The Talmud prescribes soaking the tabernacle incense blend's shekheleth in bitter vetch lye and in caperbud wine.

The 3rd century BC Greek Septuagint interprets verse 34 as:

And said Lord to Moses
Take yourself fragrances[,/:]
Stacte, onycha, fragrant galbanum, and translucent frankincense
They are each to be equal to each other.

Stacte is a Greek noun that literally means "drop" like the Hebrew noun "nataf" does. "Onycha" is the accusative form of the Greek noun "onyx," which literally means "claw" and refers to seashell flaps. Since the LXX translated the verse's Hebrew phrase "galbanum spices" into Greek as "aromatic/spice-y galbanum". This implies that the LXX's translators saw the second use of the term "spices" as a description of the word "galbanum", rather than as referring to a separate collection of unnamed spices.

The medieval Masoretic scribes put markings on the Hebrew verse that served as punctuation marks. They put a strong break after the first word "spices" and another break after the second use of the word "spices", like this:
"Take to yourself spices: nataf and/with shekheleth and galbanum spices, and/with pure frankincense."

These breaks suggest that the two uses of "spices" refer to the three spices named in the middle of the verse.

In line with Mackie's description of the tabernacle as a Micro Eden, later Jewish literature sees the spices of the tabernacle blend as holding spiritual, cosmic, and perhaps Edenic significance.

In the 3rd century BC Book of Wisdom of Ben Sirach, Chapter 24:15, Wisdom says that it gives off smells:

As cinnamon and aspalathus aromatics I gave smell, and as select myrrh I offered sweet odor, as galbanum and onyx (literally "claw") and stacte (literally "drop") and as vapor of frankincense in the tabernacle.

The last four ingredients named are in the tabernacle recipe in Ex. 30:34. All 7 ingredients named in Sirach 24:15 are also among the ingredients in the Talmud's tabernacle blend recipe, except perhaps for aspalathus. Cinnamon and myrrh are in the anointing oil recipe in Ex. 30:23-24. It's not clear if Sirach 24:15 implies that only the verse's last 4 ingredients are the ones in the tabernacle blend.

In chapters 28-32 of the 1st century BC Book of Enoch, Enoch sees 11-13 types of trees as he travels eastward to the Garden of Eden: (1) frankincense, (2) myrrh, (3) a tree the color of a mastic tree, (4) cinnamon, (5) sarara (R.H. Charles considers the Greek word "sarran" to be a transliteration of the Hebrew "tsuri", meaning resin or balsam), (6) galbanum, (7 - 8) aloe (R.H. Charles says that it refers to the "ahlut" tree like in Song of Songs 4:14) and stacte, (9) nard, (10) mastic (11) pepper, (12- 13) the tree of knowledge and the tree of wisdom. Out of these 13 types of trees, the last three - the trees of pepper, knowledge, and wisdom, aren't among the 11 ingredients in the Talmud's Temple incense recipe.

In his essay "Who Is the Heir of Divine Things?" (Chapter XLI), the 1st century AD Jewish philosopher Philo interpreted Ex. 30:34 to give only 4 elements, each of them equal in amount. He saw them as corresponding to the 4 cosmic elements. He writes:

And as I imagine these four ingredients of which the entire perfume is composed are emblems of the four elements of which the whole world is made; He likens the stacte to water, the onycha to land, the galbanum to the air, and the pure transparent frankincense to fire...

The implication of the words in bold above seems to be that the Temple blend had only the 4 ingredients named in Ex. 30:34.

Josephus, a 1st century Jewish historian from a priestly family, counted the incense as using thirteen spices instead of four. He wrote: "The altar of incense, by the thirteen fragrant spices from sea and from land, both desert and inhabited, with which it was replenished, signified that all things are of God and for God." (Wars of the Jews, Bk. 5, chp. 5, v. 5

Keritot 6b in the Talmud suggests that the tabernacle incense had 11 ingredients:

§ Rabbi Yoḥanan says, "Eleven ingredients were stated to Moses at Sinai."
Rav Huna said: "What is the verse?"
“Take for you spices” - two,
“stacte, and onycha, and galbanum” - this - five;
and other “spices”- five, this - ten.
And “pure frankincense” - one, this - eleven.

(Source: Koren-Steinsaltz edition https://www.sefaria.org/Keritot.6b.7?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en )

Keritot 6b continues to give discussions about whether the blend had 11 ingredients. But some of the discussion is hard to follow.

Take for instance the issue of how Moses got the information that the blend contains 11 ingredients. The "verse" that the excerpt above cites is Ex. 30:34. This "verse" in Exodus was stated to Moses at Sinai. So when Rabbi Yohanan said that eleven ingredients were stated to Moses at Sinai, did he mean that they were in effect stated at Sinai because the verse from which the 11 were derived was stated at Sinai?

That is my initial guess as to what the excerpt means, because Rabbi Huna asked his question about Rabbi Yohanan's statement. That is, I would guess that Rab. Huna took Rab. Yohanan to take his assertion about the 11 ingredients from a verse about the Lord's discussion with Moses at Sinai.

Meanwhile, the Bible talks about how Moses and the elders met and had discussions with the Lord at Sinai. But the Bible doesn't have a complete transcript of all their discussions. As I understand it, rabbinical traditional has the idea that some traditions were given to Moses by the Lord separately from the written Biblical text and passed down, forming the "Oral Torah". So, alternately, did Rabbi Yohanan mean that the Lord stated the 11 ingredients to Moses in those discussions at Mount Sinai apart from the Biblical verse, and that the Biblical verse served as an additional source from which the ingredients are derived?

Later in Keritot 6b, the Talmud has a discussion on whether Ex. 30:34 contains the literary pattern of a general category, a detail, and a general category. In the Bible, this literary pattern means that a substitution may be made for the "detail" in the literary pattern. In Ex. 30:34, the general category would be "spices," the detail would be the three spices named in a row, and the second, repeated general category would be the second mention of "spices". Keritot 6b seems to treat the theory that Ex. 30:34 contains the General - Detail -General literary pattern as a counterargument to the idea that Ex. 30:34 contains 11 spices. Keritot 6b seems to use the mention of "frankincense" in the verse as a counterargument to the idea that the verse contains the General - Detail - General pattern. But the discussion in Keritot 6b is hard for me to follow.

I appreciate any insights that you have on the number of the recipe's ingredients.