² tn Heb “on the altar of the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

³ tn The sign of the accusative here must indicate an adverbial accusative and not the direct object; they offered their gifts for the dedication of the altar.

¹ tc The LXX includes the following words here: “and all things pertaining to the altar and within the veil.” Cf. Num 18:7.

⁴ sn Regarding the “cut off” penalty, see the note on Lev 7:20. Cf. the interpretive translation of TEV “he can never again serve at the altar.”

¹ tn Heb “and he shall take the fullness of the censer, coals of fire, from on the altar from to the faces of the Lord.”

¹ tn Again, Aaron probably did the washing (v. 21a), but Moses presented the portions on the altar (v. 21b; cf. the note on v. 15 above).

¹ tn Heb “in it,” apparently referring to the “hearth” which was on top of the altar (cf. the note on v. 9).

¹ sn The “firstfruit” referred to here was given to the priests as a prebend for their service to the Lord, not offered on the altar (Num 18:12).

² tn Heb “on the wood, which is on the fire, which is on the altar.” Cf. NIV84 “on the burning wood”; NLT “on the wood fire.”

³ sn The phrase “most holy to the Lord” means that the altar cannot be used for any other purpose than what is stated here.

¹ tn Once again this is an adverbial accusative of time. Each day for seven days the ritual at the altar is to be followed.

¹ tn Heb “to the place of the altar which he had made there in the beginning” (cf. Gen 12:7-8).

¹ tn Heb “and they went to Geliloth of the Jordan which is in the land of Canaan, and the sons of Reuben, the sons of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh built there an altar near the Jordan, an altar great with respect to appearance.”

² sn The term here rendered “within” refers to the bringing of the blood inside the Holy Place for application to the altar of incense rather than to the altar of burnt offering in the courtyard of the tabernacle (cf. Lev 4:7, 16-18; 6:30 [23 HT]).

² sn Since it was a small altar, it needed only two rings, one on either side, in order to be carried. The second mention of their location clarifies that they should be on the sides, the right and the left, as one approached the altar.

¹ sn Since it was a small altar, it needed only two rings, one on either side, in order to be carried. The second clause clarifies that the rings should be on the sides, the right and the left, as you approach the altar.

² sn It is difficult to understand how this verse is to be harmonized with the other passages. The ceremony in the earlier passages deals with atonement made for the priests, for people. But here it is the altar that is being sanctified. The “sin [purification] offering” seems to be for purification of the sanctuary and altar to receive people in their worship.

² sn Nothing is said about the top of the altar. Some commentators suggest, in view of the previous instruction for making an altar out of earth and stone, that when this one was to be used it would be filled up with dirt clods and the animal burnt on the top of that. If the animal was burnt inside it, the wood would quickly burn. A number of recent scholars think this was simply an imagined plan to make a portable altar after the pattern of Solomon’s—but that is an unsatisfactory suggestion. This construction must simply represent a portable frame for the altar in the courtyard, an improvement over the field altar. The purpose and function of the altar are not in question. Here worshipers would make their sacrifices to God in order to find forgiveness and atonement, and in order to celebrate in worship with him. No one could worship God apart from this; no one could approach God apart from this. So too the truths that this altar communicated form the basis and center of all Christian worship. One could word an applicable lesson this way: Believers must ensure that the foundation and center of their worship is the altar, i.e., the sacrificial atonement.

¹ tn That is, Hanukkah or the ‘Festival of Lights.’ The Greek name for the feast, τὰ ἐγκαίνια (ta enkainia), literally means “renewal” and was used to translate Hanukkah which means “dedication.” The Greek noun, with its related verbs, was the standard term used in the LXX for the consecration of the altar of the Tabernacle (Num 7:10-11), the altar of the temple of Solomon (1 Kgs 8:63; 2 Chr 7:5), and the altar of the second temple (Ezra 6:16). The word is thus connected with the consecration of all the houses of God in the history of the nation of Israel.

² tn Heb “toward the altar,” but the so-called locative ה (he) attached to the word for “altar” can indicate the place where something is or happens (GKC 250 §90.d and GKC 373-74 §118.g; cf. also J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:161). This is a standard way of expressing “on/at the altar” with the verb “to offer up in smoke” (Hiphil of קָטַר [qatar]; cf. also Exod 29:13, 18, 25; Lev 1:9, 13, 15, 17; 2:2, etc.).