altar

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The Greek, Latin and Hebrew that is translated as “altar” in English is translated in a number of ways:

  • Obolo: ntook or “raised structure for keeping utensils (esp. sacrifice)” (source: Enene Enene)
  • Muna: medha kaefoampe’a or “offering table” (source: René van den Berg)
  • Luchazi: muytula or “the place where one sets the burden down”/”the place where the life is laid down” (source: E. Pearson in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 160ff. )
  • Tzotzil: “where they place God’s gifts” (source: John Beekman in Notes on Translation, March 1965, p. 2ff.)
  • Tsafiki: “table for giving to God” (source: Bruce Moore in Notes on Translation 1/1992, p. 1ff.)
  • Noongar: karla-kooranyi or “sacred fire” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Uma: “offering-burning table” (source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “place for sacrificing” (source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “burning-place” (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tibetan: mchod khri (མཆོད་​ཁྲི།) or “offering throne” (source: gSungrab website )
  • Bura-Pabir: “sacrifice mound” (source: Andy Warrren-Rothlin)
  • Kalanga: “fireplace of sacrifice” (source: project-specific notes in Paratext)
  • Cherokee: “fire nurturing place” (source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 26) (note that the Jewish priest is “fire feeder” in Cherokee
The Ignaciano translators decided to translate the difficult term in that language according to the focus of each New Testament passage in which the word appears (click or tap here to see the rest of this insight

Willis Ott (in Notes on Translation 88/1982, p. 18ff.) explains:

  • Matt. 5:23,24: “When you take your offering to God, and arriving, you remember…, do not offer your gift yet. First go to your brother…Then it is fitting to return and offer your offering to God.” (The focus is on improving relationships with people before attempting to improve a relationship with God, so the means of offering, the altar, is not focal.)
  • Matt. 23:18 (19,20): “You also teach erroneously: ‘If someone makes a promise, swearing by the offering-place/table, he is not guilty if he should break the promise. But if he swears by the gift that he put on the offering-place/table, he will be guilty if he breaks the promise.'”
  • Luke 1:11: “…to the right side of the table where they burn incense.”
  • Luke 11.51. “…the one they killed in front of the temple (or the temple enclosure).” (The focus is on location, with overtones on: “their crime was all the more heinous for killing him there”.)
  • Rom. 11:3: “Lord, they have killed all my fellow prophets that spoke for you. They do not want anyone to give offerings to you in worship.” (The focus is on the people’s rejection of religion, with God as the object of worship.)
  • 1Cor. 9:13 (10:18): “Remember that those that attend the temple have rights to eat the foods that people bring as offerings to God. They have rights to the meat that the people offer.” (The focus is on the right of priests to the offered food.)
  • Heb. 7:13: “This one of whom we are talking is from another clan. No one from that clan was ever a priest.” (The focus in on the legitimacy of this priest’s vocation.)
  • Jas. 2:21: “Remember our ancestor Abraham, when God tested him by asking him to give him his son by death. Abraham was to the point of stabbing/killing his son, thus proving his obedience.” (The focus is on the sacrifice as a demonstration of faith/obedience.)
  • Rev. 6:9 (8:3,5; 9:13; 14:18; 16:7): “I saw the souls of them that…They were under the table that holds God’s fire/coals.” (This keeps the concepts of: furniture, receptacle for keeping fire, and location near God.)
  • Rev. 11:1: “Go to the temple, Measure the building and the inside enclosure (the outside is contrasted in v. 2). Measure the burning place for offered animals. Then count the people who are worshiping there.” (This altar is probably the brazen altar in a temple on earth, since people are worshiping there and since outside this area conquerors are allowed to subjugate for a certain time.)

See also altar (Acts 17:23).


In the Hebraic English translation of Everett Fox it is translated as slaughter-site and likewise in the German translation by Buber / Rosenzweig as Schlachtstatt.

complete verse (Ezekiel 47:1)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Ezekiel 47:1:

  • Kupsabiny: “Then the man took me to where one enters the House of God. I saw a stream that flowed from under the gate of that House the one looking to the East. It flowed from the South side towards the East and passed by the altar on the South side.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Then I was brought by the man to the gate of the temple, and there I saw a water flowing towards-east from the place-of-arrival of the gate of the temple. (The temple was-facing the east.) Then water flowed to the right, to the south side of the altar.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Then, in the vision, the man brought me back to the entrance of the temple. There I saw water flowing out from under the entrance, flowing toward the east. The water was flowing from under the south side of the entrance, south of the altar.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

cardinal directions

The cardinal directions “east” and “west” are easy to translate into Maan here since the language uses “where the sun comes up” and “where the sun goes down.” For “north” the translator had “facing toward the sun rising to the left,” and for “south” she had “facing toward the sun rising to the right.” So the listener had to think hard before knowing what direction was in view when translating “to the north and south, to the east and west.” So, in case all four directions are mentioned, it was shortened by saying simply “all directions.” Manya uses a similar nomenclature for the cardinal directions. (Source: Don Slager)

Likewise, Yakan has “from the four corners of the earth” (source: Yakan back-translation) or Western Bukidnon Manobo “from the four directions here on the earth” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo back-translation).

Kankanaey is “from the coming-out and the going-away of the sun and the north and the south” (source: Kankanaey back-translation), Northern Emberá “from where the sun comes up, from where it falls, from the looking [left] hand, from the real [right] hand” (source: Charles Mortensen), Amele “from the direction of the sun going up, from the direction of the sun going down, from the north and from the south” (source: John Roberts), Ejamat “look up to see the side where the sun comes from, and the side where it sets, and look on your right side, and on your left” (source: David Frank in this blog post ).

In Lamba, only umutulesuŵa, “where the sun rises” and imbonsi, “where the sun sets” were available as cardinal directions that were not tied to the local area of language speakers (“north” is kumausi — “to the Aushi country” — and “south” kumalenje — “to the Lenje country”). So “north” and “south” were introduced as loanwords, nofu and saufu respectively. The whole phrase is kunofu nakusaufu nakumutulesuŵa nakumbonsi. (Source C. M. Doke in The Bible Translator 1958, p. 57ff. )

“West” is translated in Tzeltal as “where the sun pours-out” and in Kele as “down-river” (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel).

In Morelos Nahuatl, “north” is translated as “from above” and “south” as “from below.” (Source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)

In Matumbi cardinal directions are defined as in relation to another place. “East” for instance typically is “toward the beach” since the coast is in the eastern direction in Matumbi-speaking areas. “North” and “south” can be defined as above or below another place. (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)

The Hebrew text that gives instructions where to place items in the tabernacle with the help of cardinal directions (north and south) had to be approached in the Bambam translation specific to spacial concepts of that culture.

Phil Campbell explains: “There are no words in Bambam for north and south. In Exodus 26:35, God instructs that the table is to be placed on the north side and the lamp on the south side inside the tabernacle. The team wants to use right and left to tell where the lamp and table are located. In many languages we would say that the table is on the right and the lampstand is on the left based on the view of someone entering the tabernacle. However, that is not how Bambam people view it. They view the placement of things and rooms in a building according to the orientation of someone standing inside the building facing the front of the building. So that means the table is on the left side and the lampstand is on the right side.”

See also cardinal directions / left and right and people of the East.

Translation commentary on Ezekiel 47:1

Then he brought me back to the door of the temple: The connector Then (literally “And”) introduces the next thing that happened. If appropriate, translators may omit this connector (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New International Version, Revised English Bible). The pronoun he refers to Ezekiel’s angelic guide (see 40.3). Brought me back is literally “caused me to return” (see 44.1). The door of the temple refers to the main entrance of the Temple. At the end of chapter 46 Ezekiel and the angelic guide were in the outer courtyard, looking at the kitchens in the corners of the courtyard. Now the guide led Ezekiel from the outer courtyard back into the inner courtyard to the entrance of the Temple. The text does not say which gateway they went through to get there.

And behold: The Hebrew word hinneh rendered behold registers surprise and adds to the vividness of the story. It may be rendered “I suddenly saw,” “I was surprised to see,” or if the language allows, “Hey, look!”

Ezekiel saw that water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple, which means water was coming out from under the entrance of the Temple. There was only a small amount of water at this point, just a trickle like that which bubbles up from a small spring. The Hebrew word for threshold is the same one used in 46.2 to refer to the entrance, or doorstep, of a building. Again, its precise meaning is unclear. Here it may be appropriate to specify that the water was coming out from under the Temple’s “doorstep,” but the more general term “entrance” (Good News Translation) is also acceptable.

It is not absolutely clear where the water was flowing. First, Ezekiel says it was flowing toward the east, that is, directly away from the front of the Temple. The words in parentheses (for the temple faced east) simply remind the reader that the front of the Temple faced toward the east. But in the second half of this verse, he says the water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple. Revised Standard Version changes the Hebrew text here, which reads “the water was flowing from under the right side of the temple” (New King James Version ; similarly King James Version, New American Standard Bible, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible, Complete Jewish Bible). When standing in front of the Temple, looking out toward the east, “the right side” is “the south side” (New International Version, New International Reader’s Version, Christian Community Bible, Moffatt; similarly Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). This is the perspective that Ezekiel uses in this verse. According to the Hebrew text, the water was coming from under the southern wall of the Temple, so Revised Standard Version inserts the word threshold (also New Revised Standard Version, English Standard Version) to make this clause consistent with the previous one. It is possible that the difficult Hebrew text can mean this, but Hebrew Old Testament Text Project recommends against it. It is best to assume that Ezekiel first saw the water coming from under the entrance of the Temple and then saw that it was also coming out from under the wall on the right hand side of the doorway as well. This may be due to the fact that Ezekiel and his guide approached the front of the Temple from the northern side (after all, they went out through the north gateway in verse 2, which would mean that they did not have to cross the flow of the water).

South of the altar means the water flowed past the south side of the altar, which stood in front of the entrance of the Temple.

A model for this verse is:

• Then my guide led me back to the entrance of the Temple. I was surprised to see water coming out from underneath the entrance [or, doorstep] of the Temple, which faced east. The water flowed toward the east. And there was water flowing out from under the wall on the southern side of the doorway too. The water flowed past the altar, on the south side of the altar.

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .