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AltarAid to Bible Understanding
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an Unknown God.” (Acts 17:23) Ample historical information is available to corroborate this. Apollonius of Tyana, who visited Athens sometime after Paul, wrote: “It is a much greater proof of wisdom and sobriety to speak well of all the gods, especially at Athens, where altars are set up in honor even of unknown gods.” Geographer Pausanias in his Description of Greece in the second century C.E. reported that on the road from the Phaleron Bay harbor to the city of Athens he had observed “altars of the gods named Unknown, and of heroes.” He also spoke of “an altar of Unknown Gods” at Olympia. A similar altar was discovered in 1909 at Pergamum in the precincts of the temple of Demeter. And in Rome on the Palatine Hill is an altar dating from about 100 B.C.E., with the inscription “Sacred to a god or goddess.”
SIGNIFICANCE OF ALTARS
In Hebrews chapters 8 and 9 the apostle Paul clearly shows all the things related to the tabernacle and temple service to have been typical, though, as he states, he does not take the time to explain the significance of all the details. (Heb. 8:5; 9:5, 23) The significance of the two altars is made evident by information in the Christian Greek Scriptures. The altar of burnt offerings served as the point of mediation between God and man and hence points to God’s arrangement for the ransom sacrifice of his Son. (Compare 1 Corinthians 10:16-21.) Its situation in front of the entrance to the sanctuary emphasizes the requirement of faith in that ransom sacrifice as a prerequisite for acceptance by God. (John 3:16-18) The insistence upon a single altar of sacrifice is in harmony with Christ’s declaration: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” as well as with the many texts declaring the unity to be manifest in the Christian faith. (John 14:6; Matt. 7:13, 14; 1 Cor. 1:10-13; Eph. 4:3-6; note also Isaiah’s prophecy, at Isaiah 56:7; 60:7, that people of all nations would come to God’s altar.) It likewise relates to the “spiritual sacrifices” offered up by Christian worshipers.—1 Pet. 2:5; Heb. 13:15; compare 1 Corinthians 9:13, 14.
It is notable that, though some individuals fled to the altar, taking hold of its horns, in hope of gaining protection, God’s law prescribed that the willful murderer was to be taken “even from being at my altar to die.” (Ex. 21:14; compare 1 Kings 1:50-53; 2:28-34.) The psalmist sang: “I shall wash my hands in innocency itself, and I will march around your altar, O Jehovah.”—Ps. 26:6.
Although Hebrews 13:10 has been used as basis for erection of literal altars by professed Christians, the context shows that the “altar” spoken of by Paul is not literal but symbolic. (Heb. 13:10-16) M’Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopœdia (Vol. I, p. 183) says concerning the early Christians: “When the ancient apologists were reproached with having no temples, no altars, no shrines, they simply replied, ‘Shrines and altars we have not.’” Commenting on Hebrews 13:10, Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament (Vol. IV, p. 567) says: “It is a mistake to try to find in the Christian economy some specific object answering to altar—either the cross, or the eucharistic table, or Christ himself. Rather the ideas of approach to God,—sacrifice, atonement, pardon and acceptance, salvation,—are gathered up and generally represented in the figure of the altar, even as the Jewish altar was the point at which all these ideas converged.”
The multiplying of altars was strongly condemned by the Hebrew prophets. (Isa. 17:7, 8) Hosea said that Ephraim “multiplied altars in order to sin” (Hosea 8:11; 10:1, 2, 8; 12:11); Jeremiah stated that the sin of Judah was engraved “on the horns of their altars” (Jer. 17:1, 2); and Ezekiel foretold the slaughter of false worshipers “all around their altars.”—Ezek. 6:4-6, 13.
Expressions of divine judgment are also prophetically associated with the true altar. (Isa. 6:5-12; Ezek. 9:2; Amos 9:1) It is from “underneath the altar” that the souls of those slaughtered for witnessing for God symbolically cry out: “Until when, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, are you refraining from judging and avenging our blood upon those who dwell on the earth?”—Rev. 6:9, 10; compare 8:5; 11:1; 16:7.
At Revelation 8:3, 4 the golden altar of incense is expressly related to the prayers of the righteous. It was customary among the Jews to pray at “the hour of offering incense.” (Luke 1:9, 10; compare Psalm 141:2.) The single altar for offering incense also corresponds with the one avenue of approach outlined in the Christian Greek Scriptures.—John 10:9; 14:6; 16:23; Eph. 2:18-22; see OFFERINGS; TABERNACLE; TEMPLE.
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AlushAid to Bible Understanding
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ALUSH
(Aʹlush) [perhaps, crowding].
A place on the Sinai Peninsula, between Dophkah and Rephidim, where the Israelites encamped. The site is not known.—Num. 33:13, 14.
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AlvahAid to Bible Understanding
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ALVAH
(Alʹvah) [high, tall].
A sheik of Edom and descendant of Esau. (Gen. 36:40, 43; 1 Chron. 1:51) Possibly a place and a tribe were also called Alvah.—See TIMNA No. 3.
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AlvanAid to Bible Understanding
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ALVAN
(Alʹvan) [high, tall].
First-named son of Sheik Shobal, a Seirite.—Gen. 36:20, 23, 29; 1 Chron. 1:40.
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AmadAid to Bible Understanding
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AMAD
(Aʹmad) [people of time or duration, station].
A city of the fertile coastal plain N of the Carmel range, assigned to the tribe of Asher. (Josh. 19:26) Although there are several ruins in this area called ‘Amud, the exact location of this city is not known.
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AmalAid to Bible Understanding
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AMAL
(Aʹmal) [trouble, labor, toil].
Last named of four sons of Helem listed among “the sons of Asher, heads of the house of the forefathers, select, valiant, mighty men, heads of the chieftains.”—1 Chron. 7:35, 40.
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Amalek, AmalekitesAid to Bible Understanding
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AMALEK, AMALEKITES
(Amʹa·lek, A·malʹek·ites) [warlike, dweller in the vale].
Son of Esau’s firstborn Eliphaz, by his concubine Timna. (Gen. 36:12, 16) Amalek, a grandson of Esau, was one of the fourteen sheiks of Edom. (Gen. 36:15, 16) Amalek’s name also designated his tribal descendants.—Deut. 25:17; Judg. 7:12; 1 Sam. 15:2.
The belief of some that the Amalekites were of a much earlier origin and not descendants of Esau’s grandson Amalek is not founded on solid factual ground. Identification of the Amalekites with those living in Melukhkha collapsed when archaeological discoveries revealed that land to be in India instead of in the Sinai Peninsula as supposed. About the only support left for the notion that the Amalekites predated Amalek is Balaam’s proverbial utterance: “Amalek was the first one of the nations, but his end afterward will be even his perishing.” (Num. 24:20) This, however, is a weak argument, for Balaam was not speaking of history in general and the origin of nations seven and a half centuries earlier. He was speaking of history only in connection with the Israelites, whom he was hired to curse and who were about to enter the Promised Land. Hence, after listing Moab, Edom and Seir as Israel’s opponents Balaam declares that the Amalekites were actually “the first one of the nations” to rise up in opposition to the Israelites on their march out of Egypt toward Palestine, and for this reason, the end of Amalek “will be even his perishing.”
Moses, therefore, in relating events of Abraham’s day before Amalek was born, spoke of “the whole field of the Amalekites,” evidently doing so proleptically, that is, he was describing the region as understood by people of Moses’ time, rather than implying that Amalekites predated Amalek. (Gen. 14:7) The center of this Amalekite territory was
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