Exodus 27:3

3 Make all its utensils of bronze—its pots for removing ashes, its shovels, its sprinkling bowls, its meat forks, and its firepans.

Exodus 27:3 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 27:3

And thou shall make his pans to receive his ashes
Not to receive them in as they fell, but to gather them up in, and carry them away; and this was done every morning about cockcrowing, not much sooner nor later ^F3:

and his shovels;
to throw up the ashes together to be put into the pans; Jarchi describes this vessel to be like the cover of a brass pot, with a handle to it; the same we call a fire shovel:

and his basins:
to receive the blood of the sacrifice, and out of which it was sprinkled, as the word signifies, and may be rendered sprinkling basins:

and his flesh hooks;
not such as were used to take flesh out of the pot, ( 1 Samuel 2:13 ) for there could be no use for such at the altar of burnt offering; but were, as Jarchi says, like hooks recurved, with which they struck into the flesh, and turned it upon the coals to hasten the burning of it; and with which very probably they kept the fire and the parts of the sacrifices in good order, until they were consumed:

and his fire pans; which were a kind of censers in which coals of fire
were taken off from the altar of burnt offering, and carried to the altar of incense, as Jarchi and Ben Gersom observe, see ( Leviticus 16:12 ) but as censers did not belong to the altar of burnt offering, but to the altar of incense, Fortunatus Scacchus ^F4 is of opinion, that these were a larger sort of vessels, wherein the fire which came down from heaven was kept burning while the altar and grate were cleansed from the coals and ashes, and when the altar was had from place to place:

all the vessels thereof thou shalt make of brass;
as being fittest for the use of this altar.

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FOOTNOTES:

F3 Misn. Yoma, c. 1. sect. 8. & Maimon, in ib.
F4 Sacr. Elaeochrism. Myrothec. l. 2. c. 73. p. 676, 677.

Exodus 27:3 In-Context

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.

2 Make a horn on each of its four corners, so that the horns are of one piece, and overlay it with bronze.

3 Make all its utensils of bronze—its pots for removing ashes, its shovels, its sprinkling bowls, its meat forks, and its firepans.

4 Construct for it a grate of bronze mesh, and make a bronze ring at each of the four corners of the mesh.

5 Set the grate beneath the ledge of the altar, so that the mesh comes halfway up the altar.