4:1 He made a bronze altar, 30 feet 1 long, 30 feet 2 wide, and 15 feet 3 high.
27:1 “You are to make the 4 altar of acacia wood, seven feet six inches long, 5 and seven feet six inches wide; the altar is to be square, 6 and its height is to be 7 four feet six inches. 27:2 You are to make its four horns 8 on its four corners; its horns will be part of it, 9 and you are to overlay it with bronze. 27:3 You are to make its pots for the ashes, 10 its shovels, its tossing bowls, 11 its meat hooks, and its fire pans – you are to make all 12 its utensils of bronze. 27:4 You are to make a grating 13 for it, a network of bronze, and you are to make on the network four bronze rings on its four corners. 27:5 You are to put it under the ledge of the altar below, so that the network will come 14 halfway up the altar. 15 27:6 You are to make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and you are to overlay them with bronze. 27:7 The poles are to be put 16 into the rings so that the poles will be on two sides of the altar when carrying it. 17 27:8 You are to make the altar hollow, out of boards. Just as it was shown you 18 on the mountain, so they must make it. 19
30:1 20 “You are to make an altar for burning incense; 21 you are to make it of 22 acacia wood. 23 30:2 Its length is to be a foot and a half 24 and its width a foot and a half; it will be square. Its height is to be three feet, 25 with its horns of one piece with it. 26 30:3 You are to overlay it with pure gold – its top, 27 its four walls, 28 and its horns – and make a surrounding border of gold for it. 29 30:4 You are to make two gold rings for it under its border, on its two flanks; you are to make them on its two sides. 30 The rings 31 will be places 32 for poles to carry it with. 30:5 You are to make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold.
30:6 “You are to put it in front of the curtain that is before the ark of the testimony (before the atonement lid that is over the testimony), where I will meet you.
40:26 And he put the gold altar in the tent of meeting in front of the curtain, 40:27 and he burned fragrant incense on it, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
40:28 Then he put the curtain at the entrance to the tabernacle. 40:29 He also put the altar for the burnt offering by the entrance to the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, and offered on it the burnt offering and the meal offering, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
40:1 33 Then the Lord spoke to Moses: 34
7:1 So the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God 35 to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. 36
1 tn Heb “twenty cubits.” Assuming a cubit of 18 inches (45 cm), the length would have been 30 feet (9 m).
2 tn Heb “twenty cubits.”
3 tn Heb “ten cubits.” Assuming a cubit of 18 inches (45 cm), the height would have been 15 feet (4.5 m).
4 tn The article on this word identifies this as the altar, meaning the main high altar on which the sacrifices would be made.
5 tn The dimensions are five cubits by five cubits by three cubits high.
6 tn Heb “four”; this refers to four sides. S. R. Driver says this is an archaism that means there were four equal sides (Exodus, 291).
7 tn Heb “and three cubits its height.”
8 sn The horns of the altar were indispensable – they were the most sacred part. Blood was put on them; fugitives could cling to them, and the priests would grab the horns of the little altar when making intercessory prayer. They signified power, as horns on an animal did in the wild (and so the word was used for kings as well). The horns may also represent the sacrificial animals killed on the altar.
9 sn The text, as before, uses the prepositional phrase “from it” or “part of it” to say that the horns will be part of the altar – of the same piece as the altar. They were not to be made separately and then attached, but made at the end of the boards used to build the altar (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 363).
10 sn The word is literally “its fat,” but sometimes it describes “fatty ashes” (TEV “the greasy ashes”). The fat would run down and mix with the ashes, and this had to be collected and removed.
11 sn This was the larger bowl used in tossing the blood at the side of the altar.
12 tn The text has “to all its vessels.” This is the lamed (ל) of inclusion according to Gesenius, meaning “all its utensils” (GKC 458 §143.e).
13 tn The noun מִכְבָּר (mikhbar) means “a grating”; it is related to the word that means a “sieve.” This formed a vertical support for the ledge, resting on the ground and supporting its outer edge (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 292).
14 tn The verb is the verb “to be,” here the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive. It is “and it will be” or “that it may be,” or here “that it may come” halfway up.
15 tn Heb “to the half of the altar.”
16 tn The verb is a Hophal perfect with vav consecutive: וְהוּבָא (vÿhuva’, “and it will be brought”). The particle אֶת (’et) here introduces the subject of the passive verb (see a similar use in 21:28, “and its flesh will not be eaten”).
17 tn The construction is the infinitive construct with bet (ב) preposition: “in carrying it.” Here the meaning must be that the poles are not left in the rings, but only put into the rings when they carried it.
18 tn The verb is used impersonally; it reads “just as he showed you.” This form then can be made a passive in the translation.
19 tn Heb “thus they will make.” Here too it could be given a passive translation since the subject is not expressed. But “they” would normally refer to the people who will be making this and so can be retained in the translation.
20 sn Why this section has been held until now is a mystery. One would have expected to find it with the instructions for the other furnishings. The widespread contemporary view that it was composed later does not answer the question, it merely moves the issue to the work of an editor rather than the author. N. M. Sarna notes concerning the items in chapter 30 that “all the materials for these final items were anticipated in the list of invited donations in 25:3-6” and that they were not needed for installing Aaron and his sons (Exodus [JPSTC], 193). Verses 1-10 can be divided into three sections: the instructions for building the incense altar (1-5), its placement (6), and its proper use (7-10).
21 tn The expression is מִזְבֵּחַ מִקְטַר קְטֹרֶת (mizbeakh miqtar qÿtoret), either “an altar, namely an altar of incense,” or “an altar, [for] burning incense.” The second noun is “altar of incense,” although some suggest it is an active noun meaning “burning.” If the former, then it is in apposition to the word for “altar” (which is not in construct). The last noun is “incense” or “sweet smoke.” It either qualifies the “altar of incense” or serves as the object of the active noun. B. Jacob says that in order to designate that this altar be used only for incense, the Torah prepared the second word for this passage alone. It specifies the kind of altar this is (Exodus, 828).
22 tn This is an adverbial accusative explaining the material used in building the altar.
23 sn See M. Haran, “The Uses of Incense in Ancient Israel Ritual,” VT 10 (1960): 113-15; N. Glueck, “Incense Altars,” Translating and Understanding the Old Testament, 325-29.
24 tn Heb “a cubit.”
25 tn Heb “two cubits.”
26 tn Heb “its horns from it.”
27 tn Heb “roof.”
28 tn Heb “its walls around.”
29 tn Heb “and make for it border gold around.” The verb is a consecutive perfect. See Exod 25:11, where the ark also has such a molding.
30 sn Since it was a small altar, it needed only two rings, one on either side, in order to be carried. The second clause clarifies that the rings should be on the sides, the right and the left, as you approach the altar.
31 tn Heb “And it”; this refers to the rings collectively in their placement on the box, and so the word “rings” has been used to clarify the referent for the modern reader.
32 tn Heb “for houses.”
33 sn All of Exod 39:32-40:38 could be taken as a unit. The first section (39:32-43) shows that the Israelites had carefully and accurately completed the preparation and brought everything they had made to Moses: The work of the
34 tn Heb “and Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying.”
35 tn The word “like” is added for clarity, making explicit the implied comparison in the statement “I have made you God to Pharaoh.” The word אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) is used a few times in the Bible for humans (e.g., Pss 45:6; 82:1), and always clearly in the sense of a subordinate to GOD – they are his representatives on earth. The explanation here goes back to 4:16. If Moses is like God in that Aaron is his prophet, then Moses is certainly like God to Pharaoh. Only Moses, then, is able to speak to Pharaoh with such authority, giving him commands.
36 tn The word נְבִיאֶךָ (nÿvi’ekha, “your prophet”) recalls 4:16. Moses was to be like God to Aaron, and Aaron was to speak for him. This indicates that the idea of a “prophet” was of one who spoke for God, an idea with which Moses and Aaron and the readers of Exodus are assumed to be familiar.