Leviticus 16:13

13. Before the Lord This must here signify in the most holy place. It was considered a grave mistake, amounting to a sacrilege, in a certain Sadducean high priest to dare to kindle the incense without the vail and to carry it smoking within. Since the holy of holies was left in utter darkness, the venture of the high priest into the “thick darkness” where God dwelt strikingly illustrates the faith which is required to approach the mercy seat, where the “light inaccessible” veils itself in the cloud.

That he die not Death through neglect of these precautions may have been natural, and not judicial. See Numbers 4:18, note. “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.” Exodus 33:20. “Common priests burned incense every day at the altar without the vail. Only once a year, and only after the most careful preparation, goes the high priest into the holiest. If he fail in his preparation he is liable to die. To ask a confirmatory sign of only Gabriel’s message in the holy place, outside the holiest, is to get dumbness for a sign. The high priest went into the holiest with a cord attached, that his body might be drawn out if he were slain.” Bishop H.W. Warren. The command that the priest envelop himself in a cloud of incense when he raises the curtain expresses the fact that full and cloudless communion with God was not realized under the Old Testament sacrifices; that not until Jesus “by his own blood entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us,” were we able with “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus;” nor until then could believers enjoy the crowning blessing in the gift of God, the “communion of the Holy Ghost.” John 14:16; 2 Corinthians 13:14.