1 Kings 6:22

(22) The whole altar that was by (or belonged to) the oracle.—This is the altar of incense, which, although it stood (see Exodus 30:6; Exodus 40:26) before the veil, and therefore in the Holy place, was considered to belong in idea rather to the Holy of Holies; since the offering of incense on it signified the approach by worship to the unseen presence of God, symbolised in the darkness and silence of the inner shrine; and the taking of the censer from it was a condition for the actual entrance into the Holy of Holies on the great Day of Atonement. Hence in Exodus 40:5 the altar is said to be “set before the ark of the testimony,” and here to “belong to the oracle.” Probably this is the explanation of the well-known passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews (1 Kings 9:4), where the Holiest place is said to have “had the altar of incense” (wrongly rendered “censer” in our Authorised Version).