What Does Exodus 27:1 Mean?
And you shall make an altar of shittim wood, five forearms long and five forearms wide. The altar shall be four-sided, and its height shall be three forearms.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And thou shalt make an altar of shittim wood, five cubits long, and five cubits broad; the altar shall be foursquare: and the height thereof shall be three cubits.THE KEY
The altar’s Hebrew name carries the act of sacrifice inside it, so this measured structure is named by the act it is built to hold.
THE MEANING
Sacred approach takes tangible form here: acacia wood is measured into a square altar, five cubits long and broad and three cubits high. The place is defined before an offering appears, giving sacrifice a concrete form rather than leaving it abstract.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The sacred is not formless or only inward: here, the place of sacrifice has material, measured form.
THE ROOT
מִזְבֵּחַ
mizbeach
GROWS FROM
זבח
z-b-ḥ
to slaughter; to sacrifice
The English word “altar” names the structure; Hebrew מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach, altar) also carries its purpose through זבח (z-b-ḥ, slaughter or sacrifice). That root retains the act’s hard edge: sacrifice entails slaughter, and the altar’s dimensions give that act a defined place.
ALSO GROWS
zavaḥ: to slaughter or sacrifice
זָבַח
This verb names the action carried in the altar’s name.
zevaḥ: a sacrifice or sacrificial offering
זֶבַח
This noun names what is brought to the altar, linking the structure to the offering it receives.
THE PATTERN
The place of encounter is shaped around an offering, giving what is presented a tangible form.
And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird, and sent up rising offerings on the altar.You shall make an altar of soil for me, and upon it you shall slaughter your rising offerings and your wholeness offerings, your sheep and your herd. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered, I will come to you, and I will bless you.Therefore I urge you, brothers, through the compassions of God, to set your bodies beside God as a living sacrifice, set apart, well-pleasing to him, which is your true service.THE THREAD
And they came to the place of which God had said to him, and Abraham built the altar there, and arranged the wood, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach, altar) is the same Hebrew word used in this verse. Genesis sets the wood and altar beside a bound son, making explicit the sacrifice carried in the name Exodus 27 defines through material and measurement.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us