Λιβανωτός is a rare word in the Biblia graeca and means ‘frankincense’. It appears once in the canonical Septuagint in 1 Chron 9.29 as part of a list of ingredients which were under the care of the Levites: flour, wine, olive oil, incense and spices. In the Apocrypha, it appears in 3 Macc 5.2 as a drug, together with unmixed wine, for maddening or running elephants wild. Then it is used only in Rev 8.3, 5 in constructions which made lexicographers unanimously define λιβανωτός as a container (censer or brazier). However, when one examines the usage of this noun in Greek writing at large, he or she observes, not without surprise, that λιβανωτός exhibits impressively stable semantics. Virtually everywhere in the history of Greek, the term is a spice (frankincense). Why then should Rev 8.3, 5 be an exception? The study probes into the claim that λιβανωτός means ‘censer’ in the Johannine Apocalypse, shows how well the regular meaning of incense fits in the scene John witnesses, and draws important implications for the understanding of the text and the lexicographical task.
