ALTARS, FORMS OF. The direction to the Israelites, at the time of their leaving Egypt, to construct their altars of unhewn stones or of earth, is doubtless to be understood as an injunction to follow the usage of their patriarchal ancestors ; and not to adopt the customs, full of idolatrous associa tions, which they had seen in Egypt, or might see in the land of Canaan. As they were also strictly enjoined to destroy the altars of the Canaanites, it is more than probable that the direction was levelled against such usages as those into which that people had fallen. The conclusion deducible from this, that the patriarchal altars were of unhewn stones or of earth, is confirmed by the circumstances under which they were erected, and by the fact that they are always described as being ' built.' The provision that they might be made of earth, applies doubtless to situations in which stones could not be easily obtained, as in the open plains and wildernesses. Familiar analogies lead to the inference that the largest stones that could be found in the neighbourhood would be employed to form the altar ; but where no large stones could be had, that heaps of smaller ones might be made to serve.
[An attempt has been made to shew that in the cromlech we have a specimen of these primitive altars (Kitto, Pictorial Hist. of Palestine, Supp. Notes to b. iii. chs. I, 3, 4). But this opinion is now universally renounced by well-informed anti quaries, by whom the cromlech is regarded as a sepulchral and not a sacrificial monument (see the decisive paper of Mr. F. L. Lukis in the Archoological vol. i. p. 142, 222.)] The injunction that there should be no ascent by steps to the altar appears to have been imperfectly understood. There are no accounts or figures of altars so elevated in their fabric as to require such steps for the officiating priests ; but when altars are found on rocks or hills, the ascent to them is sometimes facilitated by steps cut in the rock. This, therefore, may have been an indirect way of preventing that erection of altars in high places which the Scriptures so often reprobate.
It is usually supposed, however, that the effect of this prohibition was, that the tabernacle altar, like most ancient altars, was so low as to need no ascent ; or else that some other kind of ascent was provided. The former is Calmet's view, the latter Lamy's. Lamy gives a sloping ascent, while Calmet merely provides a low standing board for the officiating priest. The latter is probably right, for the altar was but three cubits high, and was designed to De portable. There is one error in these and other figures of the Jewish altars composed from the descriptions ; namely, with regard to the ' horns,' which were placed at the corners, called the horns of the altar' (Exod. xxvii. 2 ; xxix. 12 ; I Kings ii. 2S), and to which the victims were tied at the time of sacrifice. The word horn (inp keren) was applied by the Jews as an epithet descriptive of any point ancient altars. These are shewn in the view now given (from the Pictorial Bible), which, although substantially the same, is, in this and other respects, a considerable improvement upon that of Calmet.
By the time of Solomon it appears to have been understood that the interdiction of steps of ascent did not imply that the altar was to be low, but rather that it was to be high, and that only a par ticular mode of ascent was forbidden. The altar of the temple was not less than ten cubits high, and some means of ascent must have been pro vided. The usual representations of Solomon's altar are formed chiefly from the descriptions of that in Herod's temple given by Josephus and the Rabbins ; and although this last was almost one third higher and larger than the other, it was doubtless upon the same model. The altar of the first temple had been seen, and could be described, by many of those who were present when that of the second temple was erected ; and the latter was known to those by whom Herod's altar was built. Very different figures, however, have been formed from these descriptions.