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.

inclusive vs. exclusive pronoun (Heb. 13:10)

Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)

The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).

For this verse, translators typically select the inclusive form (including the writer and the readers of this letter).

Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.

complete verse (Hebrews 13:10)

Following are a number of back-translations of Hebrews 13:10:

  • Uma: “We have something [emphatic] that is better than the custom of the Yahudi religion. The Big Priest of the Yahudi religion slaughtered livestock on the worship-gift burning-place table [altar] to pay-for the sins of the people. But the priests who work in the Worship Tent long ago, they were forbidden to eat anything from that worship-gift. But we [emphatic], we can say, we have an worship-gift that is better, that is the death of Yesus to redeem our sins. Every single one of us gets goodness [salvation] from the death of Yesus.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “We (incl.) the ones trusting in Almasi have a sacrifice but the Yahudi priests in the temple have no authority to eat it.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “As for us (incl.) believers in Christ, we have a sacrifice; however, those Jewish priests who offer sacrifice in the church there in Jerusalem, they don’t have any right to eat it.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Therefore those who persist in following the law of Moses, they have no right to share in our blessings that result from Jesus’ being-offered on the cross for sins.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “We who are believing/obeying Jesus, his death on the cross is the means-of-forgiving our sin. But those who still sacrifice animals which are-a-means-of-asking-for forgiveness for sin, they really have no part in the forgiveness that can-be-obtained at that cross.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “As for us, it is Jesus Christ who becomes the sacrifice which clears our sins. Now the high priest of the Jews kills animals to make sacrifices to God and there is the sacrifice of which there is not permission to eat the meat of it.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Hebrews 13:10

This verse, like verse 8, points both backward and forward. This is one of the reasons why it is difficult to understand, and therefore difficult to translate. Two contrasts are involved, one of which is expressed and the other only implied. The expressed contrast is between the Jewish place of worship (Jewish is not explicit in the Greek) and our altar. The implied contrast, which has not always been noticed, is between the rules about foods and the Christian sacrifices of praise to God (verse 15) and doing good (verse 16). The writer is thinking particularly of the rule mentioned in verses 10-11, that the Old Testament priests are not allowed to eat the sacrifice for sins.

It is in this setting that the question “Does this verse refer to the Lord’s Supper?” may be answered. The view of most Roman Catholics until recent years was that it did, and Knox‘s translation reflects this: “We have an altar of our own, and it is not those who carry out the worship of the tabernacle that are qualified to eat its sacrifices” (implying “but Christians do so in the Mass”). More recently, scholars of various churches have come to agree that our altar is “not the table used for the Eucharist, but either the cross on which Christ was sacrificed, or Christ himself through whom we offer the sacrifice of prayer to God” (Jerusalem Bible note; similarly Traduction œcuménique de la Bible).

How is this to be made clear in translation? In the clause, literally, “We have an altar” (Revised Standard Version), Biblia Dios Habla Hoy replaces “altar” by “sacrifice” and so points more clearly to verses 15-16, “We have a different sacrifice, from which the priests of the old sanctuary have no right to eat,” but even this could be misunderstood to refer to the Lord’s Supper. Good News Translation adds the sacrifice on, in order to avoid the idea of eating the altar itself. More important, the sentence is restructured so that our altar is deliberately given a less emphatic place than it has in the Greek text. This also makes a better link between The priests as the grammatical subject of verse 10, and the Jewish High Priest as the subject of verse 11. Jewish, as always in Hebrews, is implied; see comment on 10.1. Priests also fits the context better than Moffatt‘s “worshippers,” which is another possible meaning of the Greek.

In the Jewish place of worship may be expressed as “in the Jewish Temple.” But to speak about the priest having no right to eat any of the sacrifice on our altar may wrongly suggest that Christians made sacrifices on altars. It is only after the reader comes to verse 15 that he realizes that the sacrifice is one of praise to God. It may therefore be necessary to introduce a marginal note referring the reader to verse 15. It may be possible to anticipate part of the content of verse 15 by translating this verse “The priests who serve in the Jewish place of worship have no right to share in any of the sacrifice of praise which we offer on our altar” or “… in our place of worship.”

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

Sung version of Hebrews 13

Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).

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