Hebrews 9:4
Having a golden censer, and the ark of the testament covered about on every part with gold, in which was a golden pot that had manna, and the rod of Aaron, that had blossomed, and the tables of the testament.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- aureum habens thuribulum, et arcam testamenti circumtectam ex omni parte auro, in qua urna aurea habens manna, et virga Aaron, quæ fronduerat, et tabulæ testamenti,
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- χρυσοῦν ἔχουσα θυμιατήριον καὶ τὴν κιβωτὸν τῆς διαθήκης περικεκαλυμμένην πάντοθεν χρυσίῳ, ἐν ᾗ στάμνος χρυσῆ ἔχουσα τὸ μάννα καὶ ἡ ῥάβδος Ἀαρὼν ἡ βλαστήσασα καὶ αἱ πλάκες τῆς διαθήκης,
Haydock's commentary
Having the golden censer. What is meant by this is uncertain, no mention being made of a golden censer in either part of the tabernacle made by the order of Moses, which the apostle here speaks of. Some say that the high priest, when he entered once a year into the holy of holies, made use of a golden censer, which he left there: but this is merely a conjecture. Others think that by the golden censer is meant the altar of perfumes, or where perfumes were burnt, which was, as it were a large censer, and is called by the same Greek word by Josephus, the historian; but then there occurs this difficulty, that this altar was in that first part called the holy, not in the holy of holies, to which the same interpreters answer, that this altar was placed just at the entrance into the holy of holies, and so may be looked upon as belonging to the holy of holies: not does the text say it was in the holy of holies, but only having, &c. as a town may be said to have fortifications which are not within the town itself.
And the tables of the testament, or covenant. The ark was certainly in the holy of holies, in which2 was the golden urn, with a measure of manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the testament, or the tables of stone, on which were engraven the ten commandments. Nothing but these tables were within the ark: (see 3 Kings viii. and 2 Paralipomenon v. 10.) so that when it is said, in which was the golden urn and the rod of Aaron, the meaning seems to be, that they were indeed in the holy of holies with the ark, but not within the ark. (Witham)
Read on
In the Greek it is easy to confound the word thusiasterion, which signifies altar, with thumiaterion, which means censer. It was placed adjoining the inward veil, so that the clouds of the incense filled the holy of holies; and hence it is mentioned by St. Paul as contained therein.
The apostle describes these things as they were in the tabernacle which Moses constructed in the desert. (Bible de Vence)
We see with what great and continued respect and veneration the manna and Aaron's rod, &c. were kept by the Jews, and shall not Christians be allowed to preserve with equal respect the monuments of God's mercies, and tokens of Christ's passion? See St. Cyril, (lib. iv. contra Julianum) where he defends against the apostate, the keeping and honouring the cross on which Christ died. See also in St. Jerome (ep. xvii. chap. 5.) and in St. Paulinus, (ep. 11.) what reverence the faithful in those early periods of the Church paid to the sepulchres of Christ and his martyrs, as also to their relics. "We reverence and worship[honour]," says the latter, "the sepulchres of the martyrs; and, if we can, we apply the holy ashes to our eyes and mouth."
2 Habens thuribulum aureum, chrusoun echousa thumiaterion. Josephus useth the same word for the altar of perfumes, lib. 6. The Jewish War, chap. vi. and lib. 3. Jewish Antiquities, chap. vii. Ibid.[Ver. 4.] In quâ, en e. It may signify the same as cum quâ.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Methodius Oration Concerning Simeon and Anna On the Day that They Met in the Temple
IX. Let then, says he, what I have thus far said in brief, suffice for the present as my offering of thanks to God. But what shall I say to thee, O mother-virgin and virgin-mother? For the praise even of her who is not man’s work exceeds the power of man. Wherefore the dimness of my poverty I will make bright with the splendour of the gifts of the spirits that around thee shine, and offering to thee of thine own, from the immortal meadows I will pluck a garland for thy sacred and divinely crowned head. With thine ancestral hymns will I greet thee, O daughter of David, and mother of the Lord and God of David. For it were both base and inauspicious to adorn thee, who in thine own glory excellest with that which belongeth unto another. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, Paula and Eustochium to Marcella
5. The difficulty is strongly stated, and may well puzzle even those proficient in Scripture; but for all that, it admits of an easy solution. The Lord wept for the fall of Jerusalem, and He would not have done so if He did not love it. He wept for Lazarus because He loved him. The truth is that it was the people who sinned and not the place. The capture of a city is involved in the slaying of its inhabitants. If Jerusalem was destroyed, it was that its people might be punished; if the temple was overthrown, it was that its figurative sacrifices might be abolished. As regards its site, lapse of time has but invested it with fresh grandeur. The Jews of old reverenced the Holy of Holies, because of the things contained in it, the cherubim, the mercy-seat, the ark of the covenant, the manna, Aaron’s rod, and the golden altar. …
St Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, That the ruler should be, through humility, a companion of good livers, but, through the zeal of righteousness, rigid against the vices of evildoers
Supreme rule, then, is ordered well, when he who presides lords it over vices, rather than over his brethren. But, when superiors correct their delinquent subordinates, it remains for them anxiously to take heed how far, while in right of their authority they smite faults with due discipline, they still, through custody of humility, acknowledge themselves to be on a par with the very brethren who are corrected; although for the most part it is becoming that in our silent thought we even prefer the brethren whom we correct to ourselves. For their vices are through us smitten with the vigour of discipline; but in those which we ourselves commit we are lacerated by not even a word of upbraiding. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).