Exodus 27:1-8
Hollow with boards shalt thou make it
The altar is built to be carried. Horns at the corners, a brass grate, rings and staves, and nothing solid in the middle.
Objects of the Bible
The bronze altar
The first thing anyone met on walking in, and it was hollow, because it had to be carried.
It stands in the open court, five cubits square and three high, made of shittim wood overlaid with brass, with a horn at each corner of the same piece and a grate of network halfway down. The detail the account insists on is that it is hollow with boards, which reads like a construction note and is really a travel note: a solid altar could not be moved, and this one has rings and staves like everything else.
Scroll down to the story
The movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of The bronze altar
- 01
- 02
Leviticus 1:3-4
He shall put his hand upon the head
The offerer does the leaning himself at the door of the tabernacle, and the text says it shall be accepted for him to make atonement.
- 03
Leviticus 6:12-13
The fire shall ever be burning
A priest puts wood on it every morning. The instruction is repeated twice in two verses, which is how the text underlines things.
- 04
Leviticus 9:22-24
There came a fire out from before the LORD
At the dedication the fire arrives from the other direction and consumes what is on the altar, and all the people shout and fall on their faces.
- 05
Leviticus 10:1-3
Which he commanded them not
Nadab and Abihu bring strange fire, and the sentence that follows is about being sanctified in them that come nigh.
Why it matters
Everything brought to the tent stops here first. The burnt offering, the peace offering, the sin offering and the trespass offering are all dealt with in the court before anyone goes further in, and the fire on it is never to go out: the fire shall ever be burning upon the altar, it shall never go out. At its dedication fire comes out from before the LORD and consumes the burnt offering, and the people shout and fall on their faces. Two chapters later two of Aaron’s sons bring fire of their own.
3 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
