Keluaran 20:25

20:25 If you make me an altar of stone, you must not build it ¹  of stones shaped with tools, ²  for if you use your tool on it you have defiled it. ³ 

Keluaran 18:12

18:12 Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought ⁴  a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, ⁵  and Aaron and all the elders of Israel came to eat food ⁶  with the father-in-law of Moses before God.

[20:25]  ¹ tn Heb “them” referring to the stones.

[20:25]  ² tn Heb “of hewn stones.” Gesenius classifies this as an adverbial accusative – “you shall not build them (the stones of the altar) as hewn stones.” The remoter accusative is in apposition to the nearer (GKC 372 §117.kk).

[20:25]  ³ tn The verb is a preterite with vav (ו) consecutive. It forms the apodosis in a conditional clause: “if you lift up your tool on it…you have defiled it.”

[18:12]  ⁴ tn The verb is “and he took” (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB). It must have the sense of getting the animals for the sacrifice. The Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate have “offered.” But Cody argues because of the precise wording in the text Jethro did not offer the sacrifices but received them (A. Cody, “Exodus 18,12: Jethro Accepts a Covenant with the Israelites,” Bib 49 [1968]: 159-61).

[18:12]  ⁵ sn Jethro brought offerings as if he were the one who had been delivered. The “burnt offering” is singular, to honor God first. The other sacrifices were intended for the invited guests to eat (a forerunner of the peace offering). See B. Jacob, Exodus, 498.

[18:12]  ⁶ tn The word לֶחֶם (lekhem) here means the sacrifice and all the foods that were offered with it. The eating before God was part of covenantal ritual, for it signified that they were in communion with the Deity, and with one another.