Altar מִזְבֵּחַ

Our word for today is the contrast of setting up images of silver and gold as part of worship to God. We are in chapter twenty of Exodus with our word for today. מִזְבֵּחַ altar, a raised structure on which gifts or sacrifices to a god are made. It is used 401 times in the Old Testament, 3 times in our chapter. Since the very beginning we find God’s people building an altar to God most of the time to offer sacrifice to God but few times as a way to remember what God has done. We see Noah doing this right after the flood. Genesis 8:20 Then Noah built an מִזְבֵּ֖חַ altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. Abram does this as well. Genesis 12:7-8 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an מִזְבֵּ֔חַ altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an מִזְבֵּ֙חַ֙ altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. Jacob also builds an altar. Genesis 35:1, 3, 7 Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an מִזְבֵּ֔חַ altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.”…Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an מִזְבֵּ֗חַ altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone…There he built an מִזְבֵּ֔חַ altar, and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.We see this a lot throughout the rest of the Old Testament. Here are those identified as building an altar to the LORD YHWH: Moses (Exodus 17:15), Joshua (Joshua 8:30), the tribes of Reuben and Manasseh (Joshua 22:10), Gideon (Judges 6:24), Samuel (1 Samuel 7:17), Saul builds an altar (1 Samuel 14:35), David (2 Samuel 24:25), Solomon (1 Kings 9:25), Elijah (1 Kings 18:32), Uriah the priest (2 Kings 16:11), Zerubbabel and priests (Ezra 3:2). Our word is used the most in the book of Leviticus, 87 times, since it is mainly an instruction manual for the priest for the sacrifices of worship. Let’s look at how our word is used in our chapter. Exodus 20:24-26 An מִזְבַּ֣ח אֲדָמָה֮ altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. If you make me an מִזְבַּ֤ח אֲבָנִים֙ altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it. And you shall not go up by steps to מִזְבְּחִ֑י my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it.’ What I find interesting in looking at this contrast between gods of silver and gold verses an altar of earth or stone is this idea of our effort instead of God’s. When you make idols or gods of silver and gold it takes a lot of work. So people are working hard to make something for God. This would also be the case if we were to use a tool to make God a really nice stone altar. But God commands the people of that time to do neither of these. Instead he wants something that he has already provided. No work of gold or silver or tools on the stone. Just stones that are already stones. This could be emphasizing the fact that there is nothing we can do to earn God’s love and obligation for saving us. He has already done the work of saving us and he already loves us more than we will ever know. I’ll close with this thought said well in this passage. Ephesians 3:17-19 I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.