Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 1. Thou shalt make an altar] jbzm mizbeach, from jbz zabach, to slay: Septuagint, qusiasthrion, from qusiazw, to sacrifice or from quw to kill, &c. See the note on "Gen. viii. 20".
Four square] As this altar was five cubits long and five broad, and the cubit is reckoned to be twenty-one inches, hence it must have been eight feet nine inches square, and about five feet three inches in height, the amount of three cubits, taken at the same ratio.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-8 - In the court before the tabernacle, where the people attended, was a altar, to which they must bring their sacrifices, and on which their priests must offer them to God. It was of wood overlaid with brass. grate of brass was let into the hollow of the altar, about the middl of which the fire was kept, and the sacrifice burnt. It was made of net-work like a sieve, and hung hollow, that the ashes might fal through. This brazen altar was a type of Christ dying to make atonemen for our sins. The wood had been consumed by the fire from heaven, if it had not been secured by the brass: nor could the human nature of Chris have borne the wrath of God, if it had not been supported by Divin power.
Original Hebrew ועשׂית6213 את853 המזבח4196 עצי6086 שׁטים7848 חמשׁ2568 אמות520 ארך753 וחמשׁ2568 אמות520 רחב7341 רבוע7251 יהיה1961 המזבח4196 ושׁלשׁ7969 אמות520 קמתו׃6967
