Exodus 38

The writer’s description of the grating isn’t complete enough to give us an accurate picture of what the altar grating looked like or why it was there. Scholars are left guessing, which many of them love to do. Some scholars say the writer was describing decorative grating around the bottom half of the altar—a bit like wainscoting with bronze. Others picture the altar a little like a deck sitting above an area with lattice fencing below the deck. The lattice was to the deck what the grating was to the altar. Others describe the grading as the kind of thing barbecue aficionados would understand: the grating of a barbecue grill. Still others note that Exodus 27:8 says the altar was hollow. So they speculate that the grating was a metal strainer placed inside the altar, looking a bit like the strainer in which French fries are dipped into hot oil. This strainer inside the altar would allow ashes and grease from animal fat to fall to the ground. It would also have helped create a draft to fuel the fire. In addition, the metal framing would have reinforced the structure of the wooden altar, making it stronger. A full-grown dead bull can weight a ton (about 900 kg) or more.

Levites were priests and worship associates responsible for directing Israel’s worship practices and maintaining the worship center, and later the Jerusalem Temple (Numbers 18:21-24). Priests later conducted similar reports and censuses (Numbers 1:17-19).

This sacrificial offering goes by various names: fellowship offering, elevation offering, symbolic offering, special offering, and wave offering. The Hebrew word can mean to wave, lift, or blow. It was what some scholars say was mainly an expression of gratitude to God.

A shekel was a unit of weight in Bible times. It varied from place to place, but was usually a little less than 10 grams, a third of an ounce. And it was slightly heavier than a quarter or a euro.

If there were over 600,000 men, it’s a fair guess there were about 600,000 women. Put them together, and there may have been at least two children per couple. That’s about 2.4 million souls marching into the Sinai badlands, with their livestock. Those numbers seem unrealistic to many readers. If they walked in rows 100 yards (91 meters) long as they crossed the parted sea (Exodus 14:22), the column of one line after another would have stretched about 20 miles (32 kilometers). Commentators have suggested a variety of solutions. Here are three: TRUST GOD. This theory embraces the biblical story as accurate history. 600 CLANS. Another suggests the Hebrew word for “thousand” elep, can refer simply to a group of people, such as an extended family known as a clan, or a group of clans, called a tribe. So if there were 600 clans, there could have been fewer than 20,000 people—which is still a lot in a desert. SYMBOLIC NUMBERS. Another theory sees a hidden message in names. Hebrew letters had number equivalents, as did letters in other languages. A census of the Israelites said there were 603,551, which included Moses (Exodus 38:26). When we tally up the numbers for the phrase commonly used to refer to the Israelites, “sons of Israel,” the letters add up to 603,551. So the theory here is that all the Israelites came out of Egypt, however many there were.