Exodus 27:3

3 Make its pots for removing ashes, and its shovels, basins, meat forks, and firepans; make all its utensils of bronze.

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.


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 construct the altar of acacia wood. The altar must be square, seven and a half feet long, and seven and a half feet wide; it must be four and a half feet high.
2 Make horns for it on its four corners; the horns are to be of one piece. Overlay it with bronze.
3 Make its pots for removing ashes, and its shovels, basins, meat forks, and firepans; make all its utensils of bronze.
4 Construct a grate for it of bronze mesh, and make four bronze rings on the mesh at its four corners.
5 Set it below, under the altar's ledge, so that the mesh comes halfway up the altar.
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