Charles Ellicott Commentary Revelation 5:8

"And when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." — Revelation 5:8 (ASV)

And when he had taken... — Better, And when He took the roll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, having each a harp, and golden vials (or, censers) full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints (or, the holy ones).

It is not the Church alone that is interested in the revelation that will throw light on life’s mysteries and the delay of the kingdom: the whole creation groans, waiting for the reign of righteousness. Therefore, the four living beings, who represent creation, join with the elders, who represent the Church, in the adoration of the Lamb who holds the secret of life’s meaning in His hand.

It is perhaps more natural to suppose that the vials (which seem to be censers, as they hold the incense) and the harps were in the hands of the twenty-four elders, and not of the living creatures.

Here, then, we have the praises (represented by the harps) and the prayers (represented by the censers) of the worldwide and age-long Church of Christ. The comparison of prayer with incense is in strict accordance with Old Testament language: Let my prayer be set forth before You as incense (Psalms 141:2). The incense held a conspicuous place in the ritual of the Temple. The greatest care was to be taken in the composition of the incense, and the same compound was not to be used anywhere but in the sanctuary.

These precautions suggest its typical character. The true odors are the heart-prayers of God’s children.

“Of these three sweet ingredient perfumes,” says Archbishop Leighton, alluding to the composition of the Temple-incense, “namely, petition, confession, thanksgiving, is the incense of prayer, and by the divine fire of love it ascends to God, the heart and all with it; and when the hearts of the saints unite in joint prayer, the pillar of sweet smoke goes up the greater and the fuller.”

Every prayer which broke out in a sob from an agonising heart, every sigh of the solitary and struggling Christian, every groan of those groping Godward, mingles here with the songs of the happy and triumphant.