Once the anointing oil had been compounded and the vessels of the sanctuary had been touched with it, they were no longer ordinary. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan describes what happened to anyone not of the priestly tribes who dared to touch them: "of the rest of the tribes, whoever toucheth them shall be consumed by the fiery flame from before the Lord" (Exodus 30:29).
This is not the dry legal language of the Hebrew original. The targum inserts living fire — the same fiery flame that guarded the altar, now extended to every consecrated vessel. Table, menorah, ark, incense altar: all of them carried the charge.
What made the vessels so dangerous?
The sages of the Talmudic period (200-500 CE) wrestled with this. They understood that the vessels were objects, made of wood and metal. How could they burn someone? The answer they developed: the vessels were not dangerous in themselves. They were dangerous because of what they had become connected to. The anointing oil had tied them into a larger circuit — the Presence that filled the Holy of Holies. To touch a vessel improperly was to close a circuit that ran all the way to the Shekinah, and the voltage was more than a body could bear.
This is why the priests were trained so carefully. They knew where to stand, how to hold, when to step back. They were not immune to the fire. They had simply been taught to conduct it rather than resist it.
The Maggid takes the lesson: holy things are not dangerous because they are hostile. They are dangerous because they are real. The more alive something is, the more it rewards careful handling and punishes carelessness. Train your hands. Learn the steps. Then you too can hold fire without being burned.