Exodus — Chapter 30

The altar of incense is to be placed in the Holy Place before the veil. Lapide interprets the incense offered twice daily (morning and evening) as a figure of prayer: \"Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight\" (Ps. 140:2). The sweet smell ascending from below to above typifies the soul's desire rising through Christ to God. He cites Revelation 8:3-4 where the angel offers incense with the prayers of all the saints before the throne of God: the liturgical offering of incense in the Church directly continues this typological ascent.

Aaron shall pray upon the horns of the altar once a year with the blood of the sin offering for atonement: throughout your generations this shall be most holy to the Lord. The annual atonement on the horns of the incense altar with the blood of the sin offering is for Lapide a direct type of Christ's high-priestly sacrifice on the Cross and His eternal intercession in heaven. He cites Hebrews 9:14: \"How much more shall the blood of Christ, who by the Holy Ghost offered himself unspotted unto God, cleanse our conscience from dead works.\"

The Lord said to Moses: Take sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum of sweet savour, and the clearest frankincense. The four ingredients of the sacred incense, combined with salt and ground fine, are for Lapide a figure of the four virtues of prayer: prudence (which directs prayer toward its true object), justice (which renders to God what is due), fortitude (which persists in prayer through aridity), and temperance (which moderates the soul's desires to those things lawful to ask). He cites Thomas (II-II, q. 83): prayer is the interpreter of desire; we must desire rightly before we can pray rightly.