Altar
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Θυσιαστήριον (thysiastērion) is an altar, the designated place where offerings are presented in worship. Jesus imagines a worshiper bringing a gift to the altar and remembering a broken relationship, teaching that reconciliation cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to devotion.
Reader summary
Full entry for θυσιαστήριον (G2379) · Open the biblical lexicon
Θυσιαστήριον (thysiastērion) is an altar, the designated place where offerings are presented in worship. Jesus imagines a worshiper bringing a gift to the altar and remembering a broken relationship, teaching that reconciliation cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to devotion.
The BSB source-word alignment has 23 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include altar (20), [offerings] (1), altars (1), an altar (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 5:23. Its strongest book concentrations include Revelation (8), Matthew (6), 1 Corinthians (3), Hebrews (2).
Θυσιαστήριον (thysiastērion) is an altar, the designated place where offerings are presented in worship. Jesus imagines a worshiper bringing a gift to the altar and remembering a broken relationship, teaching that reconciliation cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to devotion. Zechariah encounters an angel beside the altar of incense while serving in the temple.
Elijah's lament recalls God's altars torn down as part of Israel's covenant rebellion. Paul notes that altar servants share in offerings to explain the legitimacy of material support for gospel workers. Hebrews uses altar service and tribal qualification to contrast the Levitical order with Jesus' priesthood from Judah. The altar is not a generic symbol of emotional surrender; each passage locates it within temple worship, covenant fidelity, priestly service, or Christ's fulfillment.
Θυσιαστήριον names the place of offering. Its passages join altar worship to reconciliation, priestly service, covenant desecration, material provision for ministers, and the tribal limits surpassed by Christ's priesthood.
So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,
Jesus places remembered conflict at the altar and commands reconciliation before completing the gift, refusing to separate worship offered to God from responsibility toward a brother.
Just then an angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah, standing at the right side of the altar of incense.
The angel stands at the right of the incense altar during Zechariah's priestly service, placing the promised birth of John within Israel's temple prayer and worship.
“Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well”?
Elijah recounts murdered prophets and demolished altars, naming destruction of worship sites as evidence of covenant rebellion while overlooking God's preserved remnant.
Do you not know that those who work in the temple eat of its food, and those who serve at the altar partake of its offerings?
Paul observes that people serving the altar share in its offerings, drawing a scriptural analogy for the Lord's command that gospel proclaimers receive support.
He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar.
Hebrews notes that Jesus came from a tribe with no altar service under Moses, preparing the argument that His priesthood rests on a different and superior order.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Physical or symbolic platform where sacrificial offerings unite worshiper with God through ritual.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 23 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
an altar
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Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 5 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 23 lexical occurrence verses.
θυσιαστήριον is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
The altar concentrates worship, but Scripture refuses to let sacred place conceal disobedience. Jesus interrupts the imagined offering with remembered injury because reconciliation belongs to faithful worship. Luke places Zechariah beside the incense altar as God answers prayer and advances His promised salvation through John's birth. Elijah's lament shows that altars can be attacked as part of covenant revolt, though his despair does not account for God's hidden remnant.
Paul draws from altar service to defend practical support for gospel labor, not to recreate a temple priesthood. Hebrews then marks the decisive transition: Jesus did not qualify for Levitical altar service by ancestry, yet He possesses the enduring priesthood the earlier order anticipated. Teachers should move carefully from Israel's altar to Christ, preserving historical worship, ethical demands, and priestly fulfillment without turning a church platform into a new sacrificial altar.
Matt.5.23
Θυσιαστήριον is a noun for an altar or place of sacrifice, related to offering language. Context distinguishes the incense altar from sacrificial altars and determines whether the focus is location, service, or covenant order.
Patriarchs build altars, tabernacle worship regulates them, prophets condemn polluted or destroyed altars, and Hebrews directs sacrificial access toward Christ's once-for-all priestly work.
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