Altar

The altar in scripture is a fixed point where a worshipper hands something over to God. Its forms vary — a heap of field-stones outside a patriarch's tent, an earthen mound, a bronze-clad acacia frame in the wilderness, a small gold-overlaid table for incense before the veil, and finally a heavenly altar before the throne — but its function is constant: it is the place where blood is poured, smoke rises, and Yahweh's name is recorded. Patriarchs build altars to commemorate appearances; Moses regulates them by law; the kings install them in temple worship and tear them down again; the prophets denounce their counterfeits; and the New Testament reads the whole sequence as a figure of Christ and of the church's prayers rising to God.

The Patriarchal Altars

The first altar in scripture is Noah's, raised on dry ground after the flood: "And Noah built an altar to [the Speech of] Yahweh, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar" (Gen 8:20). The pattern set there — an altar built in response to Yahweh's act, and used for burnt-offerings — is repeated by the patriarchs.

Abram's first altar is at Shechem, where Yahweh appears to him: "and there he built an altar to [the Speech of] Yahweh, who appeared to him" (Gen 12:7). He moves on and builds another between Bethel and Ai: "and there he built an altar to [the Speech of] Yahweh, and called on the name of [the Speech of] Yahweh" (Gen 12:8). At Hebron he builds a third: "[he] built there an altar to [the Speech of] Yahweh" (Gen 13:18). The most charged of his altars is at Moriah, where the offering and the worshipper nearly become the same: "Abraham built the altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, on the wood" (Gen 22:9).

Isaac follows the same pattern at Beersheba: "And he built an altar there, and called on the name of [the Speech of] Yahweh" (Gen 26:25). Jacob raises one near Shechem and gives it a confessional name — "And he erected there an altar, and called it El-elohe-israel" (Gen 33:20) — and is later sent back to the place of his earlier vision: "Arise, go up to Beth-el, and dwell there: and make there an altar to [the Speech of] God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother" (Gen 35:1). Jacob purges his household of foreign gods before he goes (Gen 35:2-4), and on arrival "he built there an altar, and called the place El-beth-el" (Gen 35:7). The patriarchal altars are unregulated, mobile, named by their builders, and tied directly to a divine appearance or rescue.

Balaam's altars at the high places of Moab borrow the language without the relationship — "Build for me here seven altars" (Num 23:1; cf. 23:14, 29) — and are built so a hireling prophet can try to coerce a curse he cannot finally pronounce.

The Bronze Altar of Burnt-Offering

At Sinai the altar comes under law. The first stipulation is austere: "An altar of earth you will make to me, and will sacrifice on it your burnt-offerings, and your peace-offerings, your sheep, and your oxen: in every place where I record my name [my Speech] will come to you and I will bless you" (Exod 20:24). Stone altars are permitted, but only of uncut stones, and without steps: "if you make me an altar of stone, you will not build it of cut stones; for if you lift up your tool on it, you have polluted it. Neither will you go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness will not be uncovered on it" (Exod 20:25-26). Moses applies the rule the next morning, building "an altar under the mount, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel" (Exod 24:4) for the covenant blood. After Amalek he builds another: "And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Yahweh-nissi" (Exod 17:15).

The wilderness altar of burnt-offering is then specified in detail. Yahweh shows Moses the pattern: "And you will make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long, and five cubits broad; the altar will be foursquare: and its height will be three cubits" (Exod 27:1), with horns "of one piece with it" overlaid in bronze (Exod 27:2), pots, shovels, basins, flesh-hooks, firepans, a bronze grating, rings, and acacia poles "as it has been shown to you in the mount" (Exod 27:3-8). Bezaleel executes the design: "And he made the altar of burnt-offering of acacia wood: five cubits was its length, and five cubits its width, foursquare; and three cubits its height" (Exod 38:1; cf. Exod 38:2-7). Because of its bronze sheathing it is also called simply "the bronze altar" (Exod 39:39) — the brazen-altar idiom of older Bibles.

Its location is fixed: "And you will set the altar of burnt-offering before the door of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting" (Exod 40:6). Moses does so on setup day and offers on it the first burnt-offering and meal-offering "as Yahweh commanded" (Exod 40:29). Its consecration is a seven-day work: "And every day you will offer the bull of sin-offering for atonement: and you will cleanse the altar, when you make atonement for it; and you will anoint it, to sanctify it" (Exod 29:36); "Seven days you will make atonement for the altar, and sanctify it: and the altar will be most holy; whatever touches the altar will be holy" (Exod 29:37). Yahweh himself stands behind the consecration: "And I will sanctify the tent of meeting, and the altar: Aaron also and his sons I will sanctify" (Exod 29:44). The anointing oil is sprinkled "on the altar seven times" (Lev 8:11), and on setup day Moses anoints "the altar of burnt-offering, and all its vessels, and sanctify[s] the altar: and the altar will be most holy" (Exod 40:10; cf. Exod 30:26-29). The dedicatory offerings of the twelve tribal princes are recorded as a single chapter-long inventory at Num 7.

The horns matter both ritually and devotionally. "Bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar" (Ps 118:27); blood is daubed on them in every sin-offering (Lev 8:15; Lev 9:9). They also offer a precarious refuge: "if a man comes presumptuously on his fellow man, to slay him with guile; you will take him from my altar, that he may die" (Exod 21:14) — a deliberate limit on the asylum custom. Adonijah tests it: "he arose, and went, and caught hold on the horns of the altar" (1 Kings 1:50). So does Joab: "Joab fled to the Tent of Yahweh, and caught hold on the horns of the altar" (1 Kings 2:28). The altar is also a flesh-hook station; Eli's sons abuse the office at Shiloh, sending an attendant "with a flesh-hook of three teeth in his hand" to take whatever it brought up out of the boiling pot (1 Sam 2:13-14).

The altar's vocabulary survives in psalm and prophecy. The psalmist swears, "Then I will go to the altar of God, To God my exceeding joy" (Ps 43:4); Malachi indicts a generation that "cover[s] the altar of Yahweh with tears, with weeping, and with sighing, insomuch that he does not regard the offering anymore" (Mal 2:13).

The Altar of Stones in the Conquest

Before the conquest, Moses commands that an altar of stones be built once the Jordan is crossed: "And it will be, when you⁺ pass over the Jordan, that you⁺ will set up these stones … in mount Ebal, and you will plaster them with plaster. And there you will build an altar to Yahweh your God, an altar of stones: you will lift up no iron [tool] on them. You will build the altar of Yahweh your God of uncut stones; and you will offer burnt-offerings on it to Yahweh your God: and you will sacrifice peace-offerings, and will eat there; and you will rejoice before Yahweh your God" (Deut 27:4-7). Joshua executes the command exactly: "Then Joshua built an altar to Yahweh, the God of Israel, in mount Ebal, as Moses the slave of Yahweh commanded the sons of Israel … an altar of uncut stones, on which no man had lifted up any iron: and they offered on it burnt-offerings to Yahweh, and sacrificed peace-offerings" (Josh 8:30-31), and "wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses … in the presence of the sons of Israel" (Josh 8:32).

The same generation almost goes to civil war over an altar that turns out not to be one. The Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, returning to their inheritance, "built an altar there by the Jordan, a great altar to look at" (Josh 22:10), which the western tribes read as a rival sanctuary. Their explanation reframes the stones as a witness, and they name them accordingly: "It is a witness between us that Yahweh is God" (Josh 22:34). Other ad-hoc altars follow as the period of the judges and the early monarchy unfolds. Gideon, by night, builds the substitute altar Yahweh has commanded "on the top of this stronghold, in the orderly manner" (Judg 6:26), having torn down the Baal altar of his father in the same act (Judg 6:25-27). Samuel builds an altar at Ramah where he judged Israel (1 Sam 7:17). Saul "built an altar to Yahweh: the same was the first altar that he built to Yahweh" (1 Sam 14:35). David, directed by Gad, goes up "to rear an altar to Yahweh in the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite" (2 Sam 24:18); "And David built an altar there to Yahweh, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings. So Yahweh was entreated for the land, and the plague was stopped from Israel" (2 Sam 24:25). Elijah at Carmel takes "twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob" (1 Kings 18:31) and builds a trenched altar "in the name of Yahweh" (1 Kings 18:32), staking the contest on its fire.

Idolatrous and Canaanite Altars

Counterfeit altars run on a parallel track. Joash already keeps an altar of Baal in Ophrah, with an Asherah beside it (Judg 6:25). After the kingdom divides, Jeroboam sets up calf-altars at Bethel and Dan, "and he went up to the altar; so he did in Beth-el, sacrificing to the calves that he had made" (1 Kings 12:32). Ahab institutionalizes Baal-worship in the north: "And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria" (1 Kings 16:32); his prophets dance at Carmel around such an altar — "they leaped about the altar which was made" — to no answer (1 Kings 18:26). In Judah, Ahaz copies the altar he saw at Damascus: "King Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar, and the pattern of it, according to all its workmanship" (2 Kings 16:10), then displaces the bronze altar and shifts the great burnt-offering rite to his Damascus-pattern altar (2 Kings 16:14-17). Manasseh fills both temple courts with altars. Josiah, in reform, "broke down" the rooftop altars of Ahaz and the courtyard altars of Manasseh "and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron" (2 Kings 23:12), then went north and "the altar that was at Beth-el … even that altar and the high place he broke down" (2 Kings 23:15).

The prophets pronounce the verdict. Isaiah promises the iniquity of Jacob is forgiven on this condition: "that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, [so that] the Asherim and the sun-images will rise no more" (Isa 27:9). Of his own contemporaries he writes that they are "a people who provoke [my Speech] to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens, and burning incense on bricks" (Isa 65:3). Hosea collapses the issue to a sentence: "Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, altars have been to him for sinning" (Hos 8:11). The Hellenistic crisis brings the corruption back to the temple itself. Antiochus "proudly entered into the sanctuary, and took away the golden altar … and the table of proposition" (1 Macc 1:22), required a generation "to build altars, and temples, and idols, and to sacrifice swine's flesh, and unclean beasts" (1 Macc 1:47), and on Kislev 15 of year 145 "they set up the abomination of desolation on the altar, and they built altars in the cities of Judah round about" (1 Macc 1:54); ten days later "they sacrificed on the altar that was upon the altar" (1 Macc 1:59). Mattathias kills the king's officer and "pulled down the altar" (1 Macc 2:25); his band goes through the towns and "they threw down the altars" (1 Macc 2:45). When Judas reaches Jerusalem his men see "the sanctuary desolate, and the altar profaned" (1 Macc 4:38). They take counsel "about the altar of burnt-offerings that had been profaned" — to pull it down "because the nations had defiled it; so they threw it down" (1 Macc 4:44-45) — and rebuild from clean material: "they took whole stones according to the law, and built a new altar according to the former" (1 Macc 4:47). The neighboring nations react with rage when they hear "that the altar was built up and the sanctuary was dedicated as before" (1 Macc 5:1). Judas later turns to Azotus "and he threw down their altars, and he burned the statues of their gods with fire" (1 Macc 5:68); Antiochus on his deathbed hears "that they had thrown down the detestable thing which he had set up on the altar in Jerusalem" (1 Macc 6:7); and when Alcimus moves against the priests they stand "before the face of the altar and the temple: and weeping, they said …" (1 Macc 7:36). The altar in this period is always either profaned or restored — the contest itself.

The Golden Altar of Incense

Inside the holy place stands the smaller, gold-overlaid altar. Its pattern is given alongside the larger one: "And you will make an altar to burn incense on: of acacia wood you will make it" (Exod 30:1), "A cubit will be its length, and a cubit its width; foursquare it will be; and two cubits will be its height: its horns will be of one piece with it. And you will overlay it with pure gold, its top, and its sides round about, and its horns; and you will make to it a crown of gold round about" (Exod 30:2-3), with rings and acacia poles for carrying (Exod 30:4-5). Bezaleel executes the design exactly (Exod 37:25-28). Because of its overlay it is also called "the golden altar" (Exod 39:38; Num 4:11) and "the altar of sweet incense" (Lev 4:7).

Its location is precisely specified. "And you will put it before the veil that is by the ark of the testimony where [my Speech] will meet with you" (Exod 30:6); on setup day Moses "set the golden altar for incense before the ark of the testimony" (Exod 40:5) and "put the golden altar in the tent of meeting before the veil" (Exod 40:26).

Its uses are daily and yearly. "And Aaron will burn on it incense of sweet spices: every morning, when he dresses the lamps, he will burn it. And when Aaron lights the lamps at evening, he will burn it, a perpetual incense before Yahweh throughout your⁺ generations. You⁺ will offer no strange incense on it, nor burnt-offering, nor meal-offering; and you⁺ will pour no drink-offering on it. And Aaron will make atonement on the horns of it once in the year; with the blood of the sin-offering of atonement once in the year he will make atonement for it" (Exod 30:7-10). Moses applies the first incense to it: "and he burned on it incense of sweet spices; as Yahweh commanded Moses" (Exod 40:27). On the Day of Atonement the high priest "will go out to the altar that is before Yahweh, and make atonement for it, and will take of the blood of the bull, and of the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar round about" (Lev 16:18); coals "from off the altar before Yahweh" (Lev 16:12) carry the incense behind the veil. Sin-offerings tie the two altars together by blood: "And the priest will put of the blood on the horns of the altar of sweet incense before Yahweh, which is in the tent of meeting; and all the blood of the bull he will pour out at the base of the altar of burnt-offering, which is at the door of the tent of meeting" (Lev 4:7; cf. Lev 4:18; Lev 9:9).

The Korah episode leaves a permanent fixture on the altar. After fire consumes the rebels, Eleazar takes their bronze censers and beats them out "for a covering of the altar, to be a memorial to the sons of Israel, to the end that no stranger, who is not of the seed of Aaron, comes near to burn incense before Yahweh" (Num 16:38-40). Both altars are carried by the Kohathites; their charge includes "the ark, and the table, and the lampstand, and the altars" (Num 3:31), and their detailed transport rite — covering the golden altar with blue and sealskin, taking ashes from the bronze altar and spreading purple over it, wrapping its vessels — is the work of Aaron and his sons before the Kohathites are even allowed to touch the load (Num 4:11-15).

Altar in the Temple Worship

When David turns the tabernacle vocabulary into building plans, he transfers "for the altar of incense refined gold by weight" along with the gold for the cherubim chariot (1 Chron 28:18). Solomon executes the design. He overlays the inner sanctuary in pure gold and "covered the altar with cedar" inside the oracle (1 Kings 6:20), and "the whole altar that belonged to the oracle he overlaid with gold" (1 Kings 6:22); the holy-place altar is gold: "Solomon made all the vessels that were in the house of Yahweh: the golden altar, and the table on which the showbread was, of gold" (1 Kings 7:48). The court altar is on a different scale altogether — "Moreover he made an altar of bronze, twenty cubits its length, and twenty cubits its width, and ten cubits its height" (2 Chron 4:1) — and at the dedication "the bronze altar that was before Yahweh was too little to receive the burnt-offering, and the meal-offering, and the fat of the peace-offerings," so the king "hallowed the middle of the court that was before the house of Yahweh" to receive the overflow (1 Kings 8:64).

The temple altar's career runs through a long oscillation of ruin and renewal. Asa "renewed the altar of Yahweh, that was before the porch of Yahweh" (2 Chron 15:8). Hezekiah's priests cleanse "all the house of Yahweh, and the altar of burnt-offering, with all its vessels, and the table of showbread, with all its vessels" (2 Chron 29:18); the king then offers "seven bullocks, and seven rams, and seven lambs, and seven he-goats, for a sin-offering for the kingdom and for the sanctuary and for Judah," and the priests sprinkle blood on the altar "to make atonement for all Israel" (2 Chron 29:21-24). Manasseh, after his repentance, "built up the altar of Yahweh, and offered on it sacrifices of peace-offerings and of thanksgiving, and commanded Judah to serve Yahweh, the God of Israel" (2 Chron 33:16). At the fall of Jerusalem the bronze furniture is stripped: "the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the spoons, and all the vessels of bronze with which they ministered, they took away" (2 Kings 25:14). Ezekiel sees the altar's standing under judgment ("between the porch and the altar were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of Yahweh, and their faces toward the east; and they were worshiping the sun toward the east," Ezek 8:16). His later vision specifies a new altar by cubit and a handbreadth, with a base, ledge, and four horns (Ezek 43:13), and prescribes a seven-day Zadokite consecration that mirrors Sinai: "These are the ordinances of the altar in the day when they will make it, to offer burnt-offerings on it, and to sprinkle blood on it … And you will take of its blood, and put it on the four horns of it, and on the four corners of the ledge, and on the border round about: thus you will cleanse it and make atonement for it … Seven days they will make atonement for the altar and purify it; so they will consecrate it. And when they have accomplished the days, it will be that on the eighth day, and forward, the priests will make your⁺ burnt-offerings on the altar, and your⁺ peace-offerings; and I will accept you⁺" (Ezek 43:18-27).

After the exile the altar precedes the temple. "Then Jeshua the son of Jozadak stood up, and his brothers the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brothers, and built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt-offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God. And they set the altar on its base; for fear was on them because of the peoples of the countries: and they offered burnt-offerings on it to Yahweh, even burnt-offerings morning and evening" (Ezra 3:2-3). The continual offerings begin "from the first day of the seventh month" while "the foundation of the temple of Yahweh was not yet laid" (Ezra 3:6).

In Sirach's high-priestly portrait, the altar service is the climax of public liturgy. When Simon "went up to the altar of majesty, And made glorious the court of the sanctuary" (Sir 50:11), the whole service is named by the altar: "Until he had finished the service of the altar; And setting in order the rows of wood for the Most High" (Sir 50:14); and when the people prayed, it was "before him who is merciful, Until he had finished the service of the altar" (Sir 50:19). The same memory associates altar with music: "Stringed instruments and song before the altar [he ordained], To make sweet melody with their music" (Sir 47:9).

The Altar in the New Testament

The author of Hebrews writes from inside this whole history: "We have an altar, of which they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle" (Heb 13:10). The altar of burnt-offering is read figuratively, as a Christ-shaped gathering point for those who have left the old service.

In John's apocalypse the altar is heavenly. An angel stands at it with a censer: "another angel came and was standing over the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given to him much incense, that he should add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne" (Rev 8:3) — the wilderness altar relocated to the throne-room, with the saints' prayers as the incense. When the sixth trumpet sounds, "I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God" (Rev 9:13). The four horns of Exod 30:2 still bound the place from which God speaks.