What is incense? Its use in the Bible and in religion

Frankincense is the gum or resin of the Boswellia tree, used to make perfume and incense.

The Hebrew word for incense is labonah, which means "white", referring to the color of the gum. The English word incense comes from a French expression which means "free incense" or "free combustion". It is also known as rubber olibanum.

Incense in the Bible
The wise men or wise men visited Jesus Christ in Bethlehem when he was a year or two. The event is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, which also tells of their gifts:

And when they entered the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, they fell and adored him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented him with gifts; gold, frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2:11, KJV)
Only Matthew's book records this episode of the Christmas story. For the young Jesus, this gift symbolized his divinity or his status as a high priest, since incense was a fundamental part of the sacrifices to Yahweh in the Old Testament. Since his ascension to heaven, Christ has served as high priest for believers, interceding for them with God the Father.

An expensive gift for a king
Incense was a very expensive substance because it was collected in remote parts of Arabia, North Africa and India. Collecting frankincense resin was a time consuming process. The reaper scratched a 5-inch long cut on the trunk of this evergreen tree, which grew near limestone rocks in the desert. For a period of two or three months, the sap comes out of the tree and hardens into white "tears". The reaper would return and scrape the crystals away, and also collect the less pure resin that had dripped along the trunk on a palm leaf placed on the ground. The hardened gum could be distilled to extract its aromatic oil for perfume, or crushed and burned as incense.

Incense was widely used by the ancient Egyptians in their religious rites. Small traces of it have been found on mummies. Jews may have learned to prepare it while they were slaves in Egypt before the exodus. Detailed instructions on how to properly use incense in sacrifices are available in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.

The mixture included equal parts of the stacte sweet spices, onycha and galbanum, mixed with pure incense and seasoned with salt (Exodus 30:34). By God's command, if someone had used this compound as a personal perfume, they would have been excluded from their people.

Incense is still used in some rites of the Roman Catholic Church. Its smoke symbolizes the prayers of the faithful who rise to heaven.

Frankincense essential oil
Today frankincense is a popular essential oil (sometimes called olibanum). It is believed to relieve stress, improve heart rate, breathing and blood pressure, increase immune function, relieve pain, cure dry skin, reverse the signs of aging, combat cancer and many other health benefits .