It was _at the doorway_ of the tent of meeting that Aaron and his sons were consecrated to the holy priesthood;[339] and it was there that the bullock was sacrificed, and its blood was poured out as an offering at the base of the altar.[340] It was _at the doorway_ of that tent, above the threshold, that the pillar of cloud descended in token of the Lord’s presence, when Moses met the Lord there in loving communion, while the people stood watching from the doorways of their own tents.[341] The altar of burnt offering, at the base or foundation of which the blood of the offerings was outpoured, was itself at the doorway of the tent of meeting, and he who offered a sacrifice to the Lord offered it at that threshold.[342] A post of honor in the temple was as a guardian of the threshold, as was also the place of a keeper of the gate. In the assignment of the priests and Levites to service, by Jehoiada the priest, in the days of Athaliah, a third part of them were in attendance at the “threshold,” and a third part “at the gate of the foundation.”[343] Later, in the days of Josiah and Hilkiah, the guardians of the threshold had the care of the money collected for the repairs of the Lord’s house.[344] And a keeper of the threshold, or of the door, of the house of God, was always mentioned with honor.[345] When the Psalmist contrasts the house of God with the tents of wickedness, he speaks of the honor of a post at the temple threshold, not of the humble place of a temple janitor, when he says: “For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand [elsewhere]. I had rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God, Than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.”[346] In the Temple at Jerusalem, the altar of burnt offering was before the threshold of the Holy Place; and those who came with sacrifices must stop at that threshold, and proffer the blood of their offering to the priests, who then reverently poured it out at the altar-threshold’s base.[347] When offerings were accepted for the repairs of the temple, in the days of Jehoash, king of Judah, it is said that “Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and bored a hole in the lid of it, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one cometh into the house of the Lord. And the priests that kept [or guarded] the threshold put therein all the money that was brought into the house of the Lord.”[348] This would seem to decide the position of the altar as at the threshold, where “one cometh into the house of the Lord.” An altar stood at the doorway, or before the door, of temples of later date in Phenicia and Phrygia, as shown on contemporary medals and coins.[349] And so in temples in other lands.