Bible Strands
Exodus 20:24
You are to make for Me an altar of earth, and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and peace offerings, your sheep and goats and cattle. In every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God addresses Israel at Sinai, immediately after forbidding silver and gold images (v. 23) and before regulating stone altars (v. 25). This is a covenant stipulation, not a narrative event.
The words — מִזְבֶּחַ (mizbach, "altar") paired with אֲדָמָה (adamah, "earth, ground") specifies an altar of raw, unworked soil — the lowest possible material, set against the precious metals of v. 23 and the hewn stone of v. 25.
The thread — The phrase "where I cause My name to be remembered" anticipates the single chosen place developed in Deuteronomy 12:5, 2 Chronicles 6:6, and Psalms 132:13.
Why it lands — God's presence is promised at a pile of dirt, not a temple; the reader is asked to accept that accessibility to God here costs nothing in craftsmanship and everything in the assumption that grandeur attracts Him.
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
An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 12:5 Instead, you must seek the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to establish as a dwelling for His Name, and there you must go.
- Psalms 132:13 For the LORD has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His home:
- 2 Chronicles 6:6 But now I have chosen Jerusalem for My Name to be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.’
- 1 Kings 9:3 And the LORD said to him: “I have heard your prayer and petition before Me. I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting My Name there forever; My eyes and My heart will be there for all time.
- Deuteronomy 12:11 then the LORD your God will choose a dwelling for His Name. And there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice offerings you vow to the LORD.
- 2 Chronicles 7:16 For I have now chosen and consecrated this temple so that My Name may be there forever. My eyes and My heart will be there for all time.
- Deuteronomy 16:11 and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God in the place He will choose as a dwelling for His Name—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite within your gates, as well as the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widows among you.
- Deuteronomy 26:2 you are to take some of the firstfruits of all your produce from the soil of the land that the LORD your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for His Name,
- 2 Chronicles 12:13 Thus King Rehoboam established himself in Jerusalem and reigned. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the LORD had chosen from all the tribes of Israel in which to put His Name. His mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite.
- Numbers 6:24 ‘May the LORD bless you and keep you;