What Does Exodus 27:6 Mean?
And you shall make poles for the altar, poles of shittim wood, and you shall sheathe them with bronze.
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 staves for the altar, staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with brass.THE KEY
Even the altar of sacrifice is made to travel; its sacred function is not fixed to one place.
THE MEANING
The altar is built from acacia wood, covered in bronze, and fitted with poles so it can be carried. Its place of sacrifice moves with the people rather than depending on a permanent site.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The sacred must be rooted in a fixed building.
THE ROOT
מִזְבֵּחַ
mizbeach
GROWS FROM
זבח
to slaughter or offer sacrifice
The altar’s Hebrew name is built from the verb for slaughtering or sacrificing: it is named by the act that happens there. The carrying poles move the place where life is offered, joining sacrifice to movement.
ALSO GROWS
zavach: to slaughter; to offer sacrifice
זָבַח
This verb names the act for which the altar is made.
zebach: sacrifice; sacrificial meal
זֶבַח
This noun shows the offering itself sharing the altar’s root.
THE PATTERN
The place and furnishings of sacred service are made to travel beyond one fixed site.
And you set the poles into the rings at the sides of the ark, that the ark may be lifted with them.And they shall set upon it all its vessels, with which they attend about it, the fire-pans, the meat-hooks, the shovels, and the basins, all the vessels of the altar. And they shall spread over it a covering of tachash hides, and set in its poles.Jesus said to her, Woman, trust me, the hour is coming when you will bow down to the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.THE THREAD
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.Here the same זבח (z-b-ḥ) root appears in both the altar’s name and the act of sacrifice. The verse also places altar and sacrifice wherever God’s name is remembered, opening the current verse’s portable design into a practice not bound to one site.
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