Exodus 27:1–8

Exodus 27:1 — Dimensions and Material: The altar is commanded to be made of acacia wood — the same incorruptible desert hardwood used throughout the Tabernacle's furnishings (cf. Ex 25:10, 25:23) — and is strikingly large compared to the other furniture: five cubits square and three cubits high (roughly 7½ × 7½ × 4½ feet). Its dominant size within the courtyard was intentional: the first thing a worshipper entering the sacred precincts encountered was not the gold lampstand or the mercy seat, but this great place of sacrifice. The square form carries symbolic weight — in the ancient Near East, the square signified completeness and stability. The sheer scale of the altar communicates that sacrifice, not merely symbolic ceremony, stands at the heart of Israel's encounter with God.

Exodus 27:2 — The Horns: "Its horns shall be of one piece with it" — this detail is theologically loaded. The four horns (Hebrew: qarnot) projecting from the altar's corners were not ornamental; they were sites of blood application in certain sacrificial rites (Lev 4:7, 8:15) and, famously, places of asylum (1 Kgs 1:50; 2:28). Being "of one piece" (mimennu, literally "from it") stresses that the horns are not attachments but integral to the altar itself, inseparable from its sacrificial function. The overlay of bronze — a metal associated with judgment and endurance — contrasts with the gold that covers the furnishings of the Holy Place and Holy of Holies. Bronze speaks of durability under fire and of divine judgment: the altar must withstand the very flames of divine encounter.

Exodus 27:3 — The Utensils: The detailed enumeration of pots, shovels, basins, meat hooks, and fire pans is not bureaucratic tedium — it is a theology of reverence. Every instrument involved in sacrifice, including the mundane task of removing ashes, is consecrated and made of bronze. No part of the sacrificial act — from the slaughter to the cleanup — falls outside the sphere of holiness. This insistence prefigures the Catholic understanding that the entirety of the liturgical action is sacred, not merely its peak moments.

Verses 4–5 — The Bronze Grating: The network of bronze (Hebrew: mikbar, a grating or lattice) placed beneath the altar's ledge, reaching halfway up, served a practical purpose — it allowed air to circulate and feed the fire — but it also structured the altar's interior space. The four rings at its corners mirror the ring-and-pole transport system used for the Ark and other furnishings, and suggest that even this fire-bearing structure must remain mobile with God's people in the wilderness. The altar cannot be domesticated into a fixed monument; it travels with Israel.

Verses 6–7 — The Carrying Poles: Acacia wood poles, overlaid with bronze, inserted into the altar's rings: the altar is portable, always capable of being carried on the shoulders of the Levitical priests. This portability is not incidental — it means that the place of sacrifice moves with the people, that atonement is not geographically bound but accompanies Israel through the wilderness. Catholic exegesis sees in this the universal reach of Christ's sacrifice, not limited to Calvary in geography or to a single moment in time.

Exodus 27:8 — Hollow Construction and Divine Blueprint: "Hollow with planks" (Hebrew: nevuv luḥot) — the altar was not solid wood or stone, but an open frame of boards, its interior filled with earth or stones at each encampment (cf. Ex 20:24–25). Most remarkably, the chapter closes with a phrase that echoes throughout the Tabernacle instructions: "as it has been shown you on the mountain." This divine blueprint (tabnit, the heavenly pattern; cf. Ex 25:9, 25:40) frames the entire Tabernacle construction as an earthly copy of a heavenly archetype. The altar is not Israel's invention; it is revealed, received, and must be executed with fidelity to its transcendent original.

Catholic tradition identifies the bronze altar of burnt offering as one of Scripture's most potent typological anticipations of the Sacrifice of the Cross and, by extension, of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The Catechism teaches that "the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice" (CCC 1367), and the Church Fathers consistently read the Tabernacle's altar as its preparatory sign.

St. Cyril of Alexandria saw the altar's bronze — its capacity to endure fire without destruction — as an image of Christ's body, which passed through the "fire" of death and emerged glorified in the Resurrection. St. Augustine, commenting on the sacrificial system broadly, noted that all the altars of the Old Law "looked forward to the one Altar and the one Sacrifice" of Calvary (City of God X.20). The Letter to the Hebrews, which the Church has always read as the authoritative Christian interpretation of the Levitical system, declares: "We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat" (Heb 13:10) — a direct reference to Christ's sacrificial death as the fulfillment and surpassing of this very altar.

The horns of the altar attracted particular patristic attention. Tertullian and later Caesarius of Arles read the four horns as pointing to the four arms of the Cross reaching toward the four corners of the earth, proclaiming salvation universally. The altar's hollow interior, filled with earth, was taken by Origen to symbolize Christ's humanity — the divine presence dwelling within human flesh, just as the glory of God dwelt within the hollow wooden frame overlaid with bronze.

The divine blueprint motif ("as it has been shown you on the mountain") is elevated by the Letter to the Hebrews into a key theological principle: the earthly sanctuary is "a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary" (Heb 8:5), with the Cross and the heavenly liturgy being the ultimate realities these shadows serve. The Second Vatican Council's Sacrosanctum Concilium echoes this when it describes the Eucharist as the "source and summit" of Christian life (SC 10) — the altar of every Catholic church standing in direct continuity with Moses's bronze altar, now transfigured by the Paschal Mystery.

For the Catholic worshipper today, these eight verses issue a quiet but searching challenge: do we approach the altar of the Mass with the gravity these instructions imply? The Lord did not leave the design of the altar to human preference or aesthetic improvisation — every cubit, every utensil, every ring was specified. This speaks to the Catholic conviction that liturgical worship is not self-expression but obedient reception of what God has revealed.

Practically, a Catholic reader might reflect on how they enter a church. The altar, like its bronze ancestor, should be the first and dominant reality encountered — not as furniture, but as the place of the one Sacrifice. The detail that even the ash-removal pots were made of bronze and consecrated invites an examination of whether we bring the same reverence to all aspects of our participation in the Mass: not only the Consecration, but the preparation, the singing, the silent waiting, the reception of Communion, even the thanksgiving after. Nothing in the liturgy is merely administrative. Finally, "as shown on the mountain" reminds us that authentic Catholic worship is received, not constructed — a call to embrace the Church's liturgical tradition rather than to improvise around it.