Keluaran 27:8

27:8 You are to make the altar hollow, out of boards. Just as it was shown you ¹  on the mountain, so they must make it. ² 

Keluaran 29:10

29:10 “You are to present the bull at the front of the tent of meeting, and Aaron and his sons are to put ³  their hands on the head ⁴  of the bull.

[27:8]  ¹ tn The verb is used impersonally; it reads “just as he showed you.” This form then can be made a passive in the translation.

[27:8]  ² tn Heb “thus they will make.” Here too it could be given a passive translation since the subject is not expressed. But “they” would normally refer to the people who will be making this and so can be retained in the translation.

[27:8]  sn Nothing is said about the top of the altar. Some commentators suggest, in view of the previous instruction for making an altar out of earth and stone, that when this one was to be used it would be filled up with dirt clods and the animal burnt on the top of that. If the animal was burnt inside it, the wood would quickly burn. A number of recent scholars think this was simply an imagined plan to make a portable altar after the pattern of Solomon’s – but that is an unsatisfactory suggestion. This construction must simply represent a portable frame for the altar in the courtyard, an improvement over the field altar. The purpose and function of the altar are not in question. Here worshipers would make their sacrifices to God in order to find forgiveness and atonement, and in order to celebrate in worship with him. No one could worship God apart from this; no one could approach God apart from this. So too the truths that this altar communicated form the basis and center of all Christian worship. One could word an applicable lesson this way: Believers must ensure that the foundation and center of their worship is the altar, i.e., the sacrificial atonement.

[29:10]  ³ tn The verb is singular, agreeing with the first of the compound subject – Aaron.

[29:10]  ⁴ sn The details of these offerings have to be determined from a careful study of Leviticus. There is a good deal of debate over the meaning of laying hands on the animals. At the very least it identifies the animal formally as their sacrifice. But it may very well indicate that the animal is a substitute for them as well, given the nature and the effect of the sacrifices.