An altar
Reading a lexicon entry
What this page is: Each lexicon entry shows the original Hebrew or Greek word behind the English translation: its meaning, its range of use, and where it appears in Scripture.
Strong's number: The Strong's code (H- or G-) is the standard reference number for this word. It connects this entry to chapter and passage language tabs.
Where it appears: The witness passages show where this word is used in context. Click any to open the study page for that passage.
This lexicon entry is part of our ongoing editorial review. If you notice missing content, unclear wording, or a possible correction, please send us a note through the Connect page. Screenshots are helpful.
מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach) is the Hebrew word for altar — the place of sacrifice. It derives from the root zabach (to slaughter, to sacrifice), and the local Hebrew index currently counts about 403 occurrences.
Reader summary
Full entry for מִזְבֵּחַ (H4196) · Open the biblical lexicon
מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach) is the Hebrew word for altar — the place of sacrifice. It derives from the root zabach (to slaughter, to sacrifice), and the local Hebrew index currently counts about 403 occurrences.
The BSB source-word alignment has 401 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include the altar (128), of the altar (53), an altar (38), on the altar (30), altar (28).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 8:20. Its strongest book concentrations include Leviticus (87), Exodus (59), 2 Chronicles (39), 1 Kings (35).
מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach) is the Hebrew word for altar — the place of sacrifice. It derives from the root zabach (to slaughter, to sacrifice), and the local Hebrew index currently counts about 403 occurrences. The mizbeach is the point at which the gap between the holy God and the sinful person is addressed: through the sacrifice on the altar, the worshipper comes to God not on their own terms but on the terms God has provided. The altar texts repeatedly state how approach to God works — not through human achievement but through sacrifice.
Genesis 22:9 is the OT's most theologically dense altar text: 'Abraham built the mizbeach there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the mizbeach, on top of the wood.' The mizbeach of Moriah is where the theology of substitutionary sacrifice takes its most compressed narrative form: the son is bound, the knife is raised, and then God provides the ram caught in the thicket (22:13). The mizbeach that was built for Isaac becomes the mizbeach on which a substitute is offered. The NT reads this as the most explicit OT anticipation of the cross — where the Son is offered and where God himself provides the substitute.
Exodus 20:24-25 gives the basic theology of the mizbeach: 'An altar (mizbeach) of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings... If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it.' The mizbeach belongs to God, is built according to God's specification, and cannot be improved by human craftsmanship — the hewn stone profanes it. The altar is God's provision for approach, not a human achievement.
Malachi 1:7-10 is the OT's most pointed prophetic critique of the mizbeach: 'You offer polluted food on my altar (mizbeach)... You have profaned it by thinking the Lord's table may be despised.' The priests are bringing blind, lame, and sick animals — the ones that can't be sold — as if the mizbeach is a waste disposal rather than a place of costly worship. The prophetic rebuke makes explicit what the altar always required: the best, not the leftovers. The theology of the mizbeach is inseparable from the theology of the offering placed on it.
For the preacher, מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach) is the word that insists approach to God is never on our own terms: it requires a sacrifice that God provides and accepts, and the worship placed on the altar must be the best, not the remainder.
מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach) appears about 403 times in the local Hebrew index. The patriarchal altars (Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) are built wherever God appears and where covenant relationship is marked. The Mosaic system establishes two altar types: the bronze altar of burnt offering (in the tabernacle courtyard) and the gold altar of incense (in the holy place).
The historical books narrate the construction of Solomon's temple altar and the repeated defection to altars of false gods that the prophets condemn. The prophets use the mizbeach as a test of covenant faithfulness: what is placed on the altar reveals the state of the heart toward God.
When they arrived at the place God had designated, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood. He bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar, atop the wood.
The Moriah mizbeach: the altar of substitution. The narrative builds slowly — each step described in detail — to the moment when the knife is raised. Then the angel stops it (22:12), and the ram in the thicket is sacrificed instead (22:13). The mizbeach that was prepared for the son becomes the mizbeach on which the substitute is offered. Abraham names the place 'the Lord will provide' (YHWH yireh, 22:14).
Later sacrificial altar theology stands in the shadow of this one: the altar is where God provides the substitute.
You are to make for Me an altar of earth, and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and peace offerings, your sheep and goats and cattle. In every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you.
The basic theological statement about the mizbeach: God specifies it ('make an altar for me'), worship is offered on it (burnt offerings, peace offerings), and God's presence accompanies it ('I will come to you'). The altar is the meeting point — not the worshipper's chosen place but the place where God records his name. 'Every place where I record my name' — the mizbeach is legitimized by divine designation, not human decision. This principle governs the entire sacrificial system.
Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” So all the people approached him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been torn down.
Elijah rebuilds the torn-down mizbeach of the Lord before calling down fire: the altar must be restored before the fire falls. The twelve stones represent the twelve tribes of Israel (18:31-32) — the mizbeach is the covenant structure made visible. The fire that falls from heaven (18:38) falls on the mizbeach that Elijah has prepared. The altar is the platform of the divine encounter; the fire is the divine response. The theological sequence is: restored altar, genuine sacrifice, divine fire.
By presenting defiled food on My altar. But you ask, ‘How have we defiled You?’ By saying that the table of the Lord is contemptible.
The polluted mizbeach: the prophetic indictment of worship that dishonors the altar by placing the defective on it. The priests are offering 'polluted bread' (lechem mego'al) — Malachi specifies blind, lame, and sick animals (1:8). The mizbeach reveals the state of the heart: what a person places on the altar discloses what they think of God. 'You have wearied the Lord with your words' (2:17) — the polluted altar is the symptom of a heart that has grown contemptuous of covenant worship.
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.
The coal from the mizbeach as the agent of purification: the fire of the altar — which should have consumed the sinner — is the fire that purifies Isaiah's lips. The coal is from the altar because the altar is where God has accepted the sacrifice that covers the worshipper. The purification comes from the altar fire specifically, not from the seraph's own fire.
This is the OT's most concentrated picture of how the altar functions: the fire that should destroy the unclean person instead purifies him, because the sacrifice on the altar has taken what the sinner deserved.
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.
Hebrew word. an altar
an altar BDB: altar Usage: altar.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 403 lexical occurrence verses.
מִזְבֵּחַ is built from this root:
Unauthorized worship centers. Hosea 8:8-14
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach) is the place where the theology of the OT becomes concrete and costly. In the sacrificial altar texts, approach to God is made concrete and costly through the death of the offering. The animal is not killed because God needs blood for its own sake; it is killed because the sin of the worshipper is real, the holiness of God is real, and the gap between them must be addressed.
Genesis 22's altar of Moriah is the OT's most theologically compressed mizbeach: the son is bound, God provides the substitute, and Abraham names the place 'the Lord will provide.' Every subsequent altar stands in that shadow — including the cross. The NT reads Jesus as the one who fulfills what the sacrificial altar system pointed toward: the one sacrifice that covers all sin, the substitute God himself provides, the altar-fire that purifies rather than destroys.
Malachi's prophetic rebuke of the polluted altar (1:7-10) is the preacher's mirror: what we place on the altar — the sacrifice of praise, the offering of our lives (Rom 12:1 — 'present your bodies as a living sacrifice') — reveals what we actually think of God. Worthy worship costs something; the animal that cannot be sold is not worship.
Gen.22.9
מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach) is a noun derived from the verb zabach (H2076, to slaughter, to sacrifice). The pattern miqtal/mizbeach is a Hebrew noun pattern that often describes the place or instrument of an action: mizbeach is 'the place of slaughtering' — the place where zabach happens. The altar is defined by its function, not its material. This is why Exodus 20:24 can speak of an 'altar of earth' (mizbeach adamah) — any material can be the mizbeach if God has designated it as the place of sacrifice.
The two primary altars of the Mosaic tabernacle are distinguished by their purpose: the bronze altar (mizbeach hanechoshet) in the courtyard is for burnt offerings; the gold altar (mizbeach hazahav) in the holy place is for incense. The incense altar appears in connection with prayer and intercession in Luke 1:10-11 (Zechariah at the incense altar) and Revelation 8:3-4 (the angel offering incense with the prayers of the saints).
The NT's treatment of the mizbeach reaches its climax in Hebrews 13:10-12: 'We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.'
The cross is the NT's mizbeach — the place where the definitive sacrifice is offered. Hebrews' entire argument (chapters 9-10) is that the OT mizbeach and its repeated sacrifices anticipated the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ. What the bronze altar required year after year — the death of animals, the shedding of blood — Christ accomplished once for all (Heb 10:10-14).
The altar at Moriah (Gen 22) is explicitly cited in Hebrews 11:17-19 as Abraham's faith in a God who raises the dead — Isaac was, 'figuratively speaking,' received back from death, anticipating the resurrection of the one who was the true substitute. Romans 12:1 applies the mizbeach vocabulary to the believer's life: 'present your bodies as a living sacrifice (thysian zosan), holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.'
The believer is both the worshipper and the offering on the NT's altar — the logic of the mizbeach extended to the whole of life.
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain