Exodus 27:1-5

The Altar

27:1 “You are to make the ¹  altar of acacia wood, seven feet six inches long, ²  and seven feet six inches wide; the altar is to be square, ³  and its height is to be ⁴  four feet six inches. 27:2 You are to make its four horns ⁵  on its four corners; its horns will be part of it, ⁶  and you are to overlay it with bronze. 27:3 You are to make its pots for the ashes, ⁷  its shovels, its tossing bowls, ⁸  its meat hooks, and its fire pans – you are to make all ⁹  its utensils of bronze. 27:4 You are to make a grating ¹⁰  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 ¹¹  halfway up the altar. ¹² 

[27:1]  ¹ tn The article on this word identifies this as the altar, meaning the main high altar on which the sacrifices would be made.

[27:1]  ² tn The dimensions are five cubits by five cubits by three cubits high.

[27:1]  ³ 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).

[27:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “and three cubits its height.”

[27:2]  ⁵ 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.

[27:2]  ⁶ 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).

[27:3]  ⁷ 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.

[27:3]  ⁸ sn This was the larger bowl used in tossing the blood at the side of the altar.

[27:3]  ⁹ 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).

[27:4]  ¹⁰ 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).

[27:5]  ¹¹ 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.

[27:5]  ¹² tn Heb “to the half of the altar.”