1"And you shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long and five cubits wide; the altar shall be square, and its height shall be three cubits.
2"You shall make its horns on its four corners; its horns shall be of one piece with it, and you shall overlay it with bronze.
3"You shall make its pails for removing its ashes, and its shovels and its basins and its forks and its firepans; you shall make all its utensils of bronze.
4"You shall make for it a grating of network of bronze, and on the net you shall make four bronze rings at its four corners.
5"You shall put it beneath, under the ledge of the altar, so that the net will reach halfway up the altar.
6"You shall make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with bronze.
7"Its poles shall be inserted into the rings, so that the poles shall be on the two sides of the altar when it is carried.
8"You shall make it hollow with planks; as it was shown to you in the mountain, so they shall make it.
It took 7 days for God to design and create the entire world and one chapter of the Bible to describe it. Man was not involved in the process. The Tabernacle, on the other hand, took much longer to create as God included man in the making of it. In addition, several more chapters of the Bible were dedicated to the description of this relatively small structure than for the creation of God's world. I can't help but consider how much God wanted us to be part of His family to have taken such care to include us in a project that gave us access to His presence. What patience and tender care He demonstrated in these pages of instructions. The excellence of form, function and beauty radiate His character and love.
The verses above describe the bronze altar that was placed inside the one door through which one entered the tabernacle. This was where the animals were sacrificed. It was the first piece of furniture in the tabernacle and was placed the furthest from the Holy of Holies where God's glory was present in the form of a cloud or pillar of fire. In contrast, the items located in the Holy of Holies were gold. Even the materials used throughout the tabernacle show the preciousness of God's presence as one moved from the world of man into the presence of God.