Skip to content
Beit HaMikdash

מזבח החיצון

The Outer Altar

The great altar of whole stones in the courtyard, with its ramp on the south.

Text, diagram and reconstruction

וְאִם־מִזְבַּח אֲבָנִים תַּעֲשֶׂה־לִּי לֹא־תִבְנֶה אֶתְהֶן גָּזִית כִּי חַרְבְּךָ הֵנַפְתָּ עָלֶיהָ וַתְּחַלְלֶהָ׃

And if thou make Me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stones; for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast profaned it.
The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation

Dimensions and materials

Base
32 x 32 amotMishnah / Talmud: Recorded in the Mishnah or Talmud, the rabbinic texts that preserve Temple practice and law.
Height
10 amotHalachah: Rambam: Codified as Jewish law by Maimonides (Rambam) in the Mishneh Torah.
Ramp
32 x 16 amot, on the southMishnah / Talmud: Recorded in the Mishnah or Talmud, the rabbinic texts that preserve Temple practice and law.

Whole stones from virgin ground on which no iron was lifted, whitewashed twice a year.

Function

Every animal, grain and wine offering, and the perpetual fire.

Daily and annual use

Ash removal before dawn, the wood arrangements, the morning and afternoon Tamid.

Festival offerings; on Sukkot, water and wine libations and the willow procession around it.

Interpretations

  • Iron was not used, 'since iron was created to shorten man's days and the altar was created to prolong man's days'.

    Mishnah Middot 3:4

Historical questions

  • Ezekiel's altar has steps facing east; Middot's has a ramp on the south. How the two relate is a classic interpretive question.

In the Third Temple

Halachah: Rambam: Codified as Jewish law by Maimonides (Rambam) in the Mishneh Torah.

Rambam writes that the altar of the returnees from Babylon was built like the future altar, 32 by 32.

All sources for this object