Altar Of Earth In The Bible
Camie Fons
The day began with trumpets, distant and haunting. An army was coming. The morning sky turned dark as the clouds gathered, thick and threatening. Lighting split the sky. Thunder shook the tents. Onward the trumpets came. Closer. Louder.
From the plain, they watched the heavens fall on the mountain in fire. Smoke poured out of the rocks and the ground quaked. But above the groans of the earth, the rattling of the rocks, and the splitting peals of the sky sounded the trumpets louder. And LOUder. And LOUDER still. Moses spoke. And God answered.
In the hearing of all the children of Israel, YHWH declared His Ten Commandments. The people cowered. Terrified, Moses trembled in fear. The people drew back. But Moses pressed in and walked up into the thick darkness where God was.[1]
Exodus 20:22-25[2]
22 And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.
23 Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.
24 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.
25 And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.
Unlike the altars, there is a wealth of Scriptures regarding these sacrifices. Burnt offerings were essentially dedicatory. The entire offering was given over to the flames on the altar. Neither the priests nor the people kept any piece of it. The peace offerings were communal. They were given in thanksgiving or in performing a vow. The kidneys and fat were burned, but the meat was eaten both by the priests and the people who brought the sacrifice. The feast after the fire signified their peace with God and one another: God supping with man, men breaking bread together.
Deuteronomy 27:5-7
5 And there [Mt. Ebal] shalt thou build an altar unto the Lord thy God, an altar of stones: thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them.
6 Thou shalt build the altar of the Lord thy God of whole stones: and thou shalt offer burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord thy God:
7 And thou shalt offer peace offerings, and shalt eat there, and rejoice before the Lord thy God.
Upon crossing the Jordan, the tribes of Israel were to divide up between Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Ebal. From Gerizim, the blessings in the law were to be declared. The curses were spoken from Ebal.[4] This is why the altar was built there. The burnt and peace offerings involved blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission for sin. And it is sin that gives ground for the curse to land.[5]
2 Corinthians 4:6-7
6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
When we came to saving faith in Jesus Christ, God took up residency in us through the Holy Spirit.[9] He redeemed us from death and destruction, the curse of the law. The systematic doctrine of this reality is laid out in the first eleven chapters of Romans. But after laying out the case of justification by faith and salvation through Jesus Christ, Paul moves to what our response should be.
This is the burnt offering on the altar of earth: our flesh given over to the service of the Lord. In light of all the apostle had written before, any other response would be unreasonable. He gave His life for us and set us free from sin through death. Now we commit our flesh to Him and walk free of sin through living for Him.
Hebrews 13:9-10, 15-16 NKJV
9 Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.
10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.
15 Therefore by Him [Jesus] let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.
16 But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Recall that in the peace offering, the priests and people ate the sacrifice. We have an altar that offers finer fare. The heart, the spirit of man, is fed with grace. As we offer sacrifices of praise as an altar of stone and take care of others through our altar of earth, we access a spiritual bounty to which the Levitical priesthood had no right. Spirit food in the form of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control is laid out as a feast before us. All we need do is eat and share.
An altar of earth thou shall make unto me
This was a temporary precept, and only in force until the tabernacle was built, and respects occasional altars, erected while on their travels, and were to be made of turfs of earth, and so easily and quickly thrown up, as their case and circumstances required, and as easily thrown down, as it was proper they should, after they had no more use for them, lest they should be abused to superstitious uses; for afterwards the altar for burnt offerings was made of Shittim wood covered with brass, and that in the temple was wholly a brazen one, ( Exodus 27:1 Exodus 27:2 ) ( 2 Chronicles 4:1 ) this precept seems to suggest the plainness and simplicity in which God would be worshipped, in opposition to the pomp and gaudy show of idolaters intimated in the preceding verse; though Tertullian F20 relates of the Romans in the times of Numa Pomptitus, that they had neither images, nor temples, nor capitols, only altars made of turfs of earth hastily thrown up; and this altar of earth might be, as Ainsworth observes, a figure of the earthly or human nature of Christ, who is the altar, whereof believers in him have a right to eat, ( Hebrews 13:10 )
and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace
offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen;
which were the creatures offered in the said sacrifices, as also in the sin offerings and trespass offerings, which, though not mentioned, are included:
in all places where I record my name;
or, "cause it to be mentioned", or "remembered" F21; where he manifested himself, displayed the glory of his nature and perfection; or, as the Targum of Jonathan expresses it, caused his Shechinah or divine Majesty to dwell, or gave any intimations of his presence, as at the altar now erected to him, and at the sacrifices offered up thereon, and afterwards in the tabernacle, between the cherubim over the mercy seat, and ark of the testimony; which was removed to various places before the temple was built at Jerusalem, where he took up his residence, and his name was called upon, made mention of, and recorded for many generations: but that being destroyed and worship there at an end, men may now worship God in any place, so be it they do it in spirit and in truth; and wherever the name of God is truly called upon, and the glory of his divine perfection, as displayed in the salvation of sinners by Christ, is set forth, and Christ and him crucified is preached; and mention is made of his name as the only one in which salvation is; of his glorious person and offices, of his righteousness, blood, and sacrifice, for justification, remission of sins, and atonement; and his ordinances are administered, which are memorials of his love and grace; there Jehovah grants his presence:
I will come unto thee:
not locally or by change of place, nor by his omnipresence merely, so he is everywhere; nor in any visible way, but in a spiritual manner, by the communications of his grace and favour, see ( John 14:21-23 ) , and I will bless thee; with his presence, than which nothing is more desirable and delightful; with the supplies of his grace, with peace and pardon, with a justifying righteousness, with a right and title to eternal life, with enlarged views of these blessings and of interest in them.
Others say the problem with polytheism and paganism is not ethics but theology. Notably, I have heard this critique leveled many times in (and at) the Jewish feminist community. For the last fifteen years, I have been part of the community of Jewish feminists who are attempting to re-vision God: to re-experience God as not only male, but also female. At this point in time, some Jewish feminists prefer gender-neutral and/or impersonal language for God, but many revel in personal, anthropomorphic God-images that include the pregnant woman, the midwife, the seamstress, the bereaved mother bear, the Lady Wisdom who cries in the streets for people to discover the truth. All of these images have their sources in Jewish tradition, and all come from Jewish texts. Why, then, have they been repressed? God has many attributes, many names. What is the great danger if some of those images are female?
Part of the perceived danger is that using feminine language for God will lead to paganism. And why would that be a problem? Many fears have been expressed: Having both masculine and feminine languages for deity will lead to our creating two gods. Using feminine language will make us think of God as earth-mother; we will think that God forgives all things and our sense of good and evil will disappear (Paula Reimer expressed this in the nineties in an article in Conservative Judaism). We will begin to invoke the fertility goddesses of Canaan, which our ancestors rejected as evil (Cynthia Ozick). We will alienate ourselves from the human-Divine drama of monotheism (Tikvah Frymer-Kensky) or from Jewish communal norms (Judith Plaskow). All of these fears stem from a sense that if we come face to face with a goddess-figure, She will be exactly what the patriarchal, Talmudic critique of Her says She is: an untruth about God.