34 And the Lord said unto Moses, Take unto thee sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum; these sweet spices with pure frankincense: of each shall there be a like weight:

35 And thou shalt make it a perfume, a confection after the art of the apothecary, tempered together, pure and holy:

36 And thou shalt beat some of it very small, and put of it before the testimony in the tabernacle of the congregation, where I will meet with thee: it shall be unto you most holy.

37 And as for the perfume which thou shalt make, ye shall not make to yourselves according to the composition thereof: it shall be unto thee holy for the Lord.

38 Whosoever shall make like unto that, to smell thereto, shall even be cut off from his people.

In addition to the anointing oil, which was already quite fragrant, God also gave the recipe for a perfume. None of the ingredients for the perfume were the same as for the oil, so I would it assume it had a completely different scent profile. It is interesting to note the presence of myrrh in the anointing oil and frankincense in the perfume. Obviously, there was also gold overlaying everything in the tabernacle. Thus, all three of the gifts that the wise men would bring to Jesus thousands of years later were also present in the ancient Israelite tabernacle.

As with the anointing oil, there is a solemn command that no one else is to take the recipe and reproduce it. In fact, God goes so far as to say they are not to make anything that smells like it, even if made from different ingredients. I think there is a lesson here of not dressing up non-spiritual things with the scent of spiritualism. I live in a culture with a strong religious base, and it has always bothered me when individuals have tried to use that religion as a leverage for worldly interests. I have seen this when individuals try to market their personal business, when they advocate for a favored political party, even when justifying their sins. They try to give these things a spiritual air, but as we learn from today’s verses, things that are temporal should not be perfumed as if they were sacred.

One final note: while it is called “perfume” in these verses, the underlying Hebrew word is the same that was translated as “incense” in the verses describing what would be burned upon the incense altar. Thus, it would seem that this is the recipe for the incense that was to be burned morning and evening for a perpetual offering to the Lord.