Psalms

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Psalm 141

1 A psalm of David. O Lord, I cry out to you. Come quickly to me. Pay attention to me when I cry out to you. 2 May you accept my prayer like incense,⁠ my uplifted hands like the evening offering.⁠ 3 O Lord, place a guard on my mouth. Protect the opening of my lips. 4 Do not let me have evil desires or participate in sinful activities with men who behave wickedly. I will not eat their delicacies. 5 May the godly strike me in love and correct me. May my head not refuse choice oil. Indeed, my prayer is a witness against their evil deeds. 6 They will be thrown over the side of a cliff by their judges. They will listen to my words, for they are pleasant. 7 As when one plows and breaks up the soil, so our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.⁠ 8 Surely I am looking to you, O Sovereign Lord. In you I take shelter. Do not expose me to danger. 9 Protect me from the snare they have laid for me and the traps the evildoers have set. 10 Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I escape.

Texts in conversation

Compare Daily Temple Ritual of Amun 4:7 and Exodus 30:7 and Psalm 141:2

Ancient Near East, Egyptian · Hebrew Bible

Summary

In the Egyptian daily temple ritual, the priest burns incense before the statue of Amun and says its scent is coming to the god. Exodus 30 has Aaron burn incense every morning and evening, and Psalm 141 compares prayer to that rising incense.

Passages

Daily Temple Ritual of Amun 4:7

Ancient Near East, Egyptian · Ritual of the Divine Cult

The Sixteenth Ceremony. The Chapter of Incense. The following shall be said: “The incense comes, the odour of the god comes, the odour of it comes to you, Amen-Ra, Lord of the Throne of the Two Lands. The odour of the Eye of Horus is for you, the odour of the goddess Nekhebit is for you, coming from the city of Nekheb. It washes you, it ornaments you, it makes its place on your two hands.

945–715 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Daily Temple Ritual of Amun

Exodus 30:7

Hebrew Bible

6 “You are to put it in front of the curtain that is before the ark of the testimony (before the atonement lid that is over the testimony), where I will meet you. 7 Aaron is to burn sweet incense on it morning by morning; when he attends to the lamps he is to burn incense. 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. 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.

750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

Psalm 141:2

Hebrew Bible

1 A psalm of David. O Lord, I cry out to you. Come quickly to me. Pay attention to me when I cry out to you. 2 May you accept my prayer like incense, my uplifted hands like the evening offering. 3 O Lord, place a guard on my mouth. Protect the opening of my lips.

600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

References

“... Nonpriests were strictly forbidden to offer incense (Num 17:5). The daily offering of incense on the altar was restricted to the high priest (Exod 30:7-8), but in the Second Temple it could be performed by any priest. [...] Incense rituals were extremely important in Egypt. [...] Egyptian priests burned incense in daily rituals at the temple. Following their purificatory bath they entered the temple gates at dawn. Once inside the temple proper the highest-ranking priest went into the sanctuary, prostrated himself before the effigy of the god, rose, chanted prayers, and infumed the air with incense. According to the Pyramid Texts, 376-78, incense burning was the “sympathetic agency by which, as the odorous vapor arises from earth to the gods, it bears aloft the fragrance of the king to mingle with that of the gods, and thus to draw them together in fellowship and association” (Breasted 1959: 126). In Israel, the ascent of the smoke of incense became the visible manifestation of prayer: “Let my prayer be counted as incense before thee, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice” (Ps 141:2)! ...”

Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 237–238.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Psalms150 psalms

Compare Daily Temple Ritual of Amun 4:7 and Exodus 30:7 and Psalm 141:2

Summary

Passages

Daily Temple Ritual of Amun 4:7

Exodus 30:7

Psalm 141:2

References

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