The word translated altar is from a root which signifies _to kill_, _to slaughter_ animals _for sacrifice_, _to sacrifice_; also _a sacrifice,_ the _victim_, or _thing_, _sacrificed_; and in the form translated _altar_ it denotes the place or instrument of sacrifice, on which the slaughtered victim (wholly or in part) was consumed by fire, and the blood poured out or sprinkled. See Levit. viii. 21, 24, xvii. 6, and elsewhere. Accordingly, to build an altar unto Jehovah, was to erect a structure on which to offer to him slaughtered animals, to be consumed (probably in all instances of acceptable worship) by fire caused immediately by him. Such altars were, in many instances, and probably in all, erected by his direction, and at places specified by him, and they were places of customary worship and of Divine manifestation. It would therefore be incongruous and preposterous to suppose that the worshippers did not understand the doctrines and typical references involved in the system, as well as the ritual forms and observances. The altar of burnt offerings, above referred to as the instrument of sacrifice by the shedding of blood, was typical of the cross as the instrument on which our Lord offered himself a sacrifice; and to this undoubtedly the true worshippers had reference, which implies a right apprehension of his person and office, as well as of the necessity and efficacy of his expiatory death, and its relation to the justification and acceptance of believers. His personal presence, in a form adapted to suggest such apprehensions, would seem to have been as necessary, when typical offerings were made by Abel, Noah, and others, during the patriarchial dispensation, as when made in the tabernacle and temple, where he was present in the visible Shekina, as is hereafter to be more particularly noticed. At present it may suffice to observe, that since he is declared to have been present in the likeness of man, and as the Melach Jehovah, on some occasions when burnt offerings were offered to him with his sanction and acceptance, as in that relating to Isaac in the history of Abraham, that of his appearance to Manoah, and that to Gideon, it may reasonably be inferred that his personal presence was equally requisite on all occasions of similar offerings. The local personal presence of Jehovah in the form in which he was often visible is implied and affirmed in passages like the following: When the children of Israel at Rephidim murmured against Moses because they had no water, Jehovah directed Moses to advance with the people and the elders, and said, "Behold, _I will stand before thee_ upon the rock in Horeb, and thou shalt smite the rock," &c. "And Moses called the name of the place Massah, &c., because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted Jehovah, saying, Is Jehovah among us or not?" Exod. xvii. 7; _i. e._, is he personally and locally present or not?