Exodus 27:1-3

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Exodus 27:1 tn The article on this word identifies this as the altar, meaning the main high altar on which the sacrifices would be made.
2. Exodus 27:1 tn The dimensions are 5 cubits by 5 cubits by 3 cubits high.
3. Exodus 27:1 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).
4. Exodus 27:1 tn Heb “and 3 cubits its height.”
5. Exodus 27:2 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.
6. Exodus 27:2 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).
7. Exodus 27:3 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.
8. Exodus 27:3 sn This was the larger bowl used in tossing the blood at the side of the altar.
9. Exodus 27:3 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).