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Biblion Bible Commentary

Read the introduction to Ezekiel · About this commentary

The Altar and Its Consecration

Ezekiel 43:13-27

13 “These are the measurements of the altar by cubits (the cubit is a cubit and a hand width): the bottom shall be a cubit, and the width a cubit, and its border around its edge a span; and this shall be the base of the altar. · WEB

The altar is measured from the base upward and then put through a week of cleansing before anything ordinary may be offered on it.

The altar is described in ascending stages — a base, a lower ledge, a greater ledge, and the hearth on top, with horns at the four corners and steps facing east. It is a structure to be climbed, and the measurements are given in the long cubit used throughout the vision. After three chapters of walls and gates, the survey has reached the object everything else is arranged around.

What follows is not a measurement but a procedure, and its length is the point. Seven days of consecration are prescribed. A bull for a sin offering on the first day, its blood put on the four horns and on the corners of the ledge and on the border all around. A male goat on the second day. Then a bull and a ram without defect, with salt cast on them by the priests, offered as a burnt offering. Seven days of a goat daily, with a bull and a ram, make atonement for the altar and purify it.

The striking thing is who the atonement is for. It is made for the altar. The place where cleansing happens must itself be cleansed before it can be used, and the procedure takes a week before a single ordinary offering is accepted. Nothing in the new arrangement is assumed to be clean because it is new.

The closing verse gives the timetable and the result together: When they have accomplished the days, it shall be that on the eighth day and onward, the priests shall make your burnt offerings on the altar and your peace offerings. Then I will accept you. The last three words are the ones to end on. The whole vision to this point has been geometry and procedure, and its object is a relationship — a people accepted, which is what the first half of the book said they had forfeited.

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