Bible Strands
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.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God gives Moses precise architectural instructions for the outer tabernacle altar.
The words — וְעָשִׂיתָ (ve'asita) translates as "and you will make," and עֲצֵי שְׁטִים (atzei shittim) literally means "wood of acacia."
The thread — The dimensions and materials recur in Exodus 38:1, while Exodus 20:24 introduces a prior command for an altar of earth.
Why it lands — The text requires exact compliance with specified materials and measurements, removing human discretion from the construction of sacred space.
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
And thou shalt make an altar of shittim wood, five cubits long, and five cubits broad; the altar shall be foursquare: and the height thereof shall be three cubits.
Cross-references
- Exodus 38:1 Bezalel constructed the altar of burnt offering from acacia wood. It was square, five cubits long, five cubits wide, and three cubits high.
- 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.
- Exodus 24:4 And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. Early the next morning he got up and built an altar at the base of the mountain, along with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.
- Exodus 40:10 Anoint the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils; consecrate the altar, and it shall be most holy.
- Exodus 40:29 He placed the altar of burnt offering near the entrance to the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, and offered on it the burnt offering and the grain offering, just as the LORD had commanded him.
- 2 Samuel 24:18 And that day Gad came to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”
- 2 Chronicles 4:1 He made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and ten cubits high.
- 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:
- Hebrews 13:10 We have an altar from which those who serve at the tabernacle have no right to eat.