Bible Strands
2 Chronicles 4:1
He made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and ten cubits high.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The chronicler records the ongoing construction of Solomon’s temple, noting the placement of the bronze altar immediately after describing the Sea of cast metal.
The words — מִזְבַּח (mizbeach) = altar, נְחֹשֶׁת (nechoshet) = bronze. The verb וַיַּעַשׂ (va.ya'as) = and he made.
The thread — The altar’s dimensions appear in Exodus 27:1 as five by five by three cubits, while Ezekiel 43:13 describes a prophetic altar with a cubit-and-a-half gutter. 1 Kings 8:64 notes the king consecrating the courtyard where such sacrifices occurred.
Why it lands — The text states a bronze altar measured twenty by twenty by ten cubits. Readers must note the stark dimensional difference from the wilderness altar and recognize the chronicler’s emphasis on the temple’s monumental scale.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Moreover he made an altar of brass, twenty cubits the length thereof, and twenty cubits the breadth thereof, and ten cubits the height thereof.
Cross-references
- 1 Kings 8:64 On that same day the king consecrated the middle of the courtyard in front of the house of the LORD, and there he offered the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings, since the bronze altar before the LORD was too small to contain all these offerings.
- Ezekiel 43:13 These are the measurements of the altar in long cubits (a cubit and a handbreadth): Its gutter shall be a cubit deep and a cubit wide, with a rim of one span around its edge. And this is the height of the altar:
- Exodus 27:1 “You are to build an altar of acacia wood. The altar must be square, five cubits long, five cubits wide, and three cubits high.
- 1 Kings 8:22 Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in front of the whole assembly of Israel, spread out his hands toward heaven,
- 1 Kings 9:25 Three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings on the altar he had built for the LORD, burning incense with them before the LORD. So he completed the temple.
- 2 Kings 16:14 He also took the bronze altar that stood before the LORD from the front of the temple (between the new altar and the house of the LORD) and he put it on the north side of the new altar.
- 2 Chronicles 1:5 But the bronze altar made by Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, was in Gibeon before the tabernacle of the LORD. So Solomon and the assembly inquired of Him there.