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The incense offering ( qəṭōreṯ) in Judaism was related to perfumed offerings on the altar of incense in the time of the Tabernacle and the First Temple and Second Temple period, and was an important component of priestly liturgy in the Temple in Jerusalem.Jacob Neusner (1990). Yoma. p. 82: "It is the wood offering which makes possible the incense offering. It must follow that the wood-offering should take ... The wood-offering comes before the blood rite, and the blood rite comes before the burning of the incense."
And the said unto Moses: Take unto yourself sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum; these sweet spices with pure frankincense: of each shall there be a like weight: And you shall make it a perfume, a confection after the art of the apothecary, tempered together salted, pure and holy: And you shall beat some of it very small, and put of it before the testimony in the tabernacle of the congregation, where I will meet with you: it shall be unto you most holy. And as for the perfume which you shall make, you shall not make to yourselves according to the composition thereof: it shall be unto you holy for the . Whosoever shall make like unto it, to enjoy the smell thereof, shall even be cut off from his people.
The incense altar was at the end of the Holy compartment of the tabernacle, next to the curtain dividing it off from the Most Holy. According to the Books of Chronicles, there was also a similar incense altar in Solomon's temple in Jerusalem. Every morning and evening the sacred incense was burned. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, coals from the altar were taken in a censer, or fire holder, together with two handfuls of incense, into the Holy of Holies, where the incense was made to smoke before the mercy seat of the ark of the testimony.
The Book of Exodus lists four components of the incense, while the Talmud lists seven additional components from the oral Torah. The four components from the Book of Exodus are:
The components are still being studied and are not determined with absolute certainty. Stacte is variously described as being the extract of the transparent portion of the myrrh resin which exudes spontaneously from the tree, or a balsam from a tree such as opobalsamum or a styrax. Onycha, which in Greek means "nail", is variously described as being the operculum from a shell found in the Red Sea (which is said to resemble a fingernail), the exudation from the rock rose bush called labdanum (both petals and markings which are said to resemble a fingernail), Styrax benzoin, bdellium, or even cloves. Galbanum is generally considered to be Ferula galbaniflua. Also considered is a milder variety from the Levant or possibly even a close relative of Ferula galbaniflua called narthex or giant fennel. Pure frankincense is the resin of a tree of the boswellia species.
According to the Talmud, the House of Avtinas was responsible for compounding the qetoret incense in the days of the Second Temple.
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