Exodus 20:25

Exo 20:25 And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.

Ver. 25. Thou hast polluted.] Not polished it. So in preaching. {1Co 2:4-5} Epistolae ornamentum est ornamentis carere: Plainness commends an epistle. {a} Nimio mundo studentes, ab immundo propius absunt. {b} Some mar all by over doing it.

{a} Politian.

{b} Colerus.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Exo_20:25

Thou shalt not build it of hewn stone.

The altar of unhewn stone: simplicity of worship

I. Ritualism is not a necessity of worship. There can be worship at the rough altar of unhewn stones, as well as in the temple where wealth has lavished its contributions and art exhausted its genius. Worship is not a form, but a spirit; not a service, but a life. And a life has many functions.

II. Meritoriousness must be excluded from worship. No too1 to be used in constructing this altar. To culture the soul in true devotion, as God requires, is a harder task than to give money, etc.

III. Universality is a characteristic of worship.

1. Not confined to places.

2. Not confined to persons. As mere earthen altars will do, where is the man who cannot build them? (Homilist.)

The Jewish altar as typical of Christ

One can hardly help connecting the words with Daniels vision of a stone cut out of the mountain without hands, which was a vision of Christ. The rough stone fashioned by no human instrumentality, this alone might be an altar of the Lord. It was forbidden that man should attempt by devices of his own to adorn the altar; if he made the endeavour, he utterly profaned and polluted the structure: and in all this, was it not, as though it had been said expressly to man, Thou shalt have a Mediator, an Altar, on which thine offerings being laid, shall be consumed by the fires of Divine acceptance; but if thou shouldst attempt to add anything of thine own to the worthiness of this Mediator, if thou wouldst carve the altar, or ornament it with human merit or righteousness, the effect shall be that for yourself the altar shall be stripped of all virtue, and no flame break forth from the heavens to burn up the oblation? Now, we believe, that so soon as man had fallen, God instituted a system of sacrifice, and taught those who had sullied their immortality that its lustre should be restored through a propitiation for sin. As we conclude that God first ordained sacrifice, we may also conclude that it was under His direction that the first altars were reared. Observe two things: an altar supported the gift, and an altar sanctified the gift. We believe that in both these respects Christ Jesus may be designated as an altar, whether you consider His Person or the work which He effects on our behalf.

1. If we look first at the Person of the Mediator, shall we not find the two properties of the altar, that it supported and sanctified the oblation which Christ made to the Almighty? The Person of Christ Jesus, as you know, was a Divine Person, whilst in it were gathered two natures, the human and the Divine. It was the human nature which was sacrificed, the Divine being inaccessible to suffering and incapable of pain. So that if you simply look at the Person of the Mediator, and consider that it was the design of the altar to support the gift that was presented in sacrifice, you must see that the Divine nature so bore up the human, that it so served as a platform on which the oblation might be laid when the fire of Gods justice came down in its purity and its intenseness, that with as much reason as Christ Jesus is described as a sacrifice, may He also be described as an altar.

2. Not, however, that the altar only sustained the gift; it also sanctified the gift; and the fitness of considering the Divine nature in the Person of Christ as the altar on which the human was presented, will be still more apparent if you bring into account this sanctifying virtue. We have already stated that the Divine nature was of necessity incapable of suffering, and that it was, therefore, the human which made the Redeemer accessible to anguish; but it was the Divinity which gave worth to the sufferings of the humanity, and rendered them efficacious to the taking away sin. The Divine was to the human what the altar was to the sacrifice: it sanctified the gift and made it acceptable. Yes, blessed Saviour we most thankfully own that through Thee, and Thee only, can we offer unto God any acceptable service. And here we would remind you of a very emphatic question put by our Lord to the Pharisees--Whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? We have to allude to the supposed efficacy in repentance, and the presumed virtue in the tears which the sinful may shed over their offences against God. The guilt of sin is removed by Christs blood, not by mans tears. It is the altar that sanctifieth the gift. I depreciate not repentance, I strip it not of moral excellence, nor of moral prevalence, but we affirm that without the altar the gift would be unavailing, without Christ the most contrite would perish with the most hardy. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Hebrew, it, that is, the stone.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

thou shalt not build it of hewn stone, &c.--that is, carved with figures and ornaments that might lead to superstition.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 25. Thou shalt not build it of hewn stone] Because they were now in a wandering state, and had as yet no fixed residence; and therefore no time should be wasted to rear costly altars, which could not be transported with them, and which they must soon leave. Besides, they must not lavish skill or expense on the construction of an altar; the altar of itself, whether costly or mean, was nothing in the worship; it was only the place on which the victim should be laid, and their mind must be attentively fixed on that God to whom the sacrifice was offered, and on the sacrifice itself, as that appointed by the Lord to make an atonement for their sins.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(25) If thou wilt make me an altar of stone.—Among civilised nations altars were almost always of stone, which superseded earth, as more durable. God does not absolutely prohibit the employment of stone altars by the Israelites, who are found to use them upon certain occasions (Jos_8:31; 1Ki_18:32). He is content to forbid the shaping of the stones by an implement, that so they may not give rise to idolatry. (See Note on Exo_20:24.)

Thou hast polluted it.—Nature is God’s handiwork, and, therefore, pure and holy. Man, by contact with it, imparts to it of his impurity. The altar, whereby sin was to be expiated, required to be free from all taint of human corruption. For the construction of the altar afterwards sanctioned, see the comment on Exo_27:1.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

25. tool] The word (ḥéreb) commonly rendered ‘sword,’ occasionally used of other sharp instruments, Jos_5:2-3 (‘knives’): in Deu_27:5 E (Jos_8:31) the word is replaced by ‘iron.’ Cf. 1Ma_4:47. The prohibition may be a survival either from a time when instruments of iron were not in general use, or from the time when the altar was a natural rock or boulder (cf. on v. 24), supposed to be the abode of numen or deity, and it was imagined that to alter its shape would have the effect of driving the numen from it (Nowack, Arch. ii. 17; DB. i. 76a, EB. i. 124). But naturally this is not the belief which actuates the prohibition here. An altar of stones, seemingly unhewn, was built by Elijah (1Ki_18:32).

it (twice)] The pron. (which is fem. in the Heb.) refers not to ‘altar but to ‘stone’: it is the stone which is profaned by being worked with a tool.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Defiled; because done in opposition to God’s order, who required, on this occasion, the utmost simplicity, to prevent any undue veneration. Iron was not used about the tabernacle or temple, as brass was more common. Altars raised in haste, like that, Deuteronomy xxvii. and Josue viii. 30, and that which was designed for the ratification of the covenant, (chap. xxiv. 4,) were required to be of this construction, unpolished and simple, as was the altar erected, 1 Machabees iv. 47. But other altars were not built after this model. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

An altar of stone in those rocky parts might be as easy for them to make as one of earth. Hewn stone would require both time, and cost, and art. The reasons of this precept are in part the same with the former, Exo 20:24.

If thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it, by thy disobedience to my express command now given; and howsoever they think to gratify me by this curiosity, I shall not look upon it as a sacred thing, by which the sacrifices offered on it shall be sanctified, but as a profane thing which will defile them. So little doth God value or approve the inventions of men in his worship, how colourable soever they be.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

25. If thou wilt make me an altar of stone — Such an altar would be as simple and easy of construction as one of turf, and more so in places where stones abounded. But to preserve its simplicity, and to deter from attempts to imitate the sculptured embellishments of heathen altars, they were forbidden to make use of hewn stone, or to wield a graver’s tool upon it. The natural stone, untouched by art or man’s device, was most like the earth itself, and most appropriate for the sanctity and simplicity of the altar-service. Any attempt to cut or carve the stones would be a polluting of holy things. The framework of acacia wood, overlaid with brass, was a subsequent and special provision for the altar of the tabernacle. See Exo_27:1-8.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And if thou wilt make me an altar of stonei.e. , if, notwithstanding my preference expressed for an altar of earth, thou wilt insist on making me one of stone, as more permanent, and so more honourable, then I require that the stones shall be rough stones shaped by nature, not stones chiselled into shape by the art of man. For if thou lift up thy tool upon it thou hast polluted it. It is conjectured with reason that we have here an old traditional idea, which God thought fit under the existing circumstances to sanction. The real object was that altars should not be elaborately carved with objects that might superinduce idolatry. The widely prevalent notion, that nature is sacred, and that all man"s interference with nature is a defilement, was made use of economically, to produce the desired result. No tool being allowed to be used, no forms of living creatures could be engraved, and so no idolatry of them could grow up.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.