Altar of Sacrifice

The Altar is the place of sacrifice where offerings are burned before God - from Noah's first post-flood altar on Ararat through Abraham's altars across Canaan to the formal altar of the tabernacle. Throughout the patriarchal narratives preserved in the Book of Jubilees, the construction of an altar for burnt offerings marks pivotal moments of covenant renewal and divine encounter. Noah raises the first such structure after the flood in Jubilees 6, offering clean animals as an atonement that elicits God’s promise never again to destroy the earth by water. Subsequent patriarchs follow this pattern, with Abraham building altars at Bethel and the oaks of Mamre to commemorate the renewal of the covenant and the promise of land and descendants. These acts are not mere formalities but deliberate restorations of the sacred order first revealed to Enoch, linking earthly worship to the heavenly cycles observed in the Book of Enoch. The Book of Jubilees provides the most systematic treatment of how these altars function within the annual calendar of feasts. Detailed prescriptions appear for each appointed time, from the Festival of Weeks in chapter 6 to the observance of Passover and Unleavened Bread in chapter 49, where the blood of the offering is applied in precise ritual sequence. The text emphasizes that the altar must be approached only on the correct day according to the solar calendar, underscoring the Enochian concern for synchronizing human worship with celestial order. Jasher echoes this emphasis by recording the same patriarchal offerings, often adding narrative detail about the wood and the fire that consume the sacrifice, thereby illustrating the physical reality of the ritual. Within the wider Enochian tradition, the altar serves as the terrestrial counterpart to the heavenly temple glimpsed in Enoch’s visions. Offerings performed there maintain the cosmic balance disrupted by the Watchers and restore harmony between heaven and earth. Far from a peripheral cultic object, it embodies the tradition’s central conviction that proper sacrifice, timed correctly and offered with a pure heart, sustains the covenant across generations.

0:00

Details

Category: Sanctuary
Associated With: Moses, Noah, Abraham

Key Chapters

The Book of Jubilees 6 Noah's Sacrifice, Covenant, and the Division of the Year 9 min read The Book of Jubilees 13 Abram in Canaan and Egypt; Separation from Lot 6 min read The Book of Jubilees 21 Abraham's Last Words to Isaac 6 min read

Key Passages

Noah's Altar

The Book of Jubilees 6:1-4

And on the new moon of the third month he went forth from the ark, and built an altar on that mountain....

A¹nd on the new moon of the third month he went forth from the ark, and built an altar on that mountain.

² And he made atonement for the earth, and took a kid and made atonement by its blood for all the guilt of the earth; for everything that had been on it had been destroyed, save those that were in the ark with Noah. ³ And he placed the fat thereof on the altar, and he took an ox, and a goat, and a sheep and kids, and salt, and a turtle-dove, and the young of a dove, and placed a burnt sacrifice on the altar, and poured thereon an offering mingled with oil, and sprinkled wine and strewed frankincense over everything, and caused a goodly savour to arise, acceptable before the Lord. ⁴ And the Lord smelt the goodly savour, and He made a covenant with him that there should not be any more a flood to destroy the earth; that all the days of the earth seed-time and harvest should never cease; cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night should not change their order, nor cease for ever.

Abraham's Altars

The Book of Jubilees 13:1-9

And Abram journeyed from Haran, and he took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother Haran's son, to the land of Canaan, an...

A¹nd Abram journeyed from Haran, and he took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother Haran's son, to the land of Canaan, and he came into Asshur, and proceeded to Shechem, and dwelt near a lofty oak.

² And he saw, and, behold, the land was very pleasant from the entering of Hamath to the lofty oak. ³ And the Lord said to him: 'To thee and to thy seed will I give this land.' ⁴ And he built an altar there, and he offered thereon a burnt sacrifice to the Lord, who had appeared to him. ⁵ And he removed from thence unto the mountain . . . Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and pitched his tent there. ⁶ And he saw and behold, the land was very wide and good, and everything grew thereon -vines and figs and pomegranates, oaks and ilexes, and terebinths and oil trees, and cedars and cypresses and date trees, and all trees of the field, and there was water on the mountains. ⁷ And he blessed the Lord who had led him out of Ur of the Chaldees, and had brought him to this land. ⁸ And it came to pass in the first year, in the seventh week, on the new moon of the first month, 1954 A.M. that he built an altar on this mountain, and called on the name of the Lord: 'Thou, the eternal God, art my God.' ⁹ And he offered on the altar a burnt sacrifice unto the Lord that He should be with him and not forsake him all the days of his life.

Altar instructions

The Book of Jubilees 21:7-16

And if thou dost slay a victim as an acceptable peace offering, slay ye it, and pour out its blood upon the altar, and a...

A⁷nd if thou dost slay a victim as an acceptable peace offering, slay ye it, and pour out its blood upon the altar, and all the fat of the offering offer on the altar with fine flour and the meat offering mingled with oil, with its drink offering -offer them all together on the altar of burnt offering; it is a sweet savour before the Lord.

⁸ And thou wilt offer the fat of the sacrifice of thank offerings on the fire which is upon the altar, and the fat which is on the belly, and all the fat on the inwards and the two kidneys, and all the fat that is upon them, and upon the loins and liver thou shalt remove, together with the kidneys. ⁹ And offer all these for a sweet savour acceptable before the Lord, with its meat-offering and with its drink- offering, for a sweet savour, the bread of the offering unto the Lord. ¹⁰ And eat its meat on that day and on the second day, and let not the sun on the second day go down upon it till it is eaten, and let nothing be left over for the third day; for it is not acceptable for it is not approved and let it no longer be eaten, and all who eat thereof will bring sin upon themselves; for thus I have found it written in the books of my forefathers, and in the words of Enoch, and in the words of Noah. ¹¹ And on all thy oblations thou shalt strew salt, and let not the salt of the covenant be lacking in all thy oblations before the Lord. ¹² And as regards the wood of the sacrifices, beware lest thou bring (other) wood for the altar in addition to these: cypress, bay, almond, fir, pine, cedar, savin, fig, olive, myrrh, laurel, aspalathus. ¹³ And of these kinds of wood lay upon the altar under the sacrifice, such as have been tested as to their appearance, and do not lay (thereon) any split or dark wood, (but) hard and clean, without fault, a sound and new growth; and do not lay (thereon) old wood, for its fragrance is gone for there is no longer fragrance in it as before. ¹⁴ Besides these kinds of wood there is none other that thou shalt place (on the altar), for the fragrance is dispersed, and the smell of its fragrance goes not up to heaven. ¹⁵ Observe this commandment and do it, my son, that thou mayst be upright in all thy deeds. ¹⁶ And at all times be clean in thy body, and wash thyself with water before thou approachest to offer on the altar, and wash thy hands and thy feet before thou drawest near to the altar; and when thou art done sacrificing, wash again thy hands and thy feet.

Did You Know?

Noah builds the first post-flood altar on Ararat, reestablishing worship in the renewed world.

Jubilees provides precise instructions for salting every offering placed upon it.

Abraham built altars at every significant location in Canaan, claiming the land spiritually before possessing it physically.

Jubilees 21 provides detailed instructions about which wood to use and which animals are acceptable, beyond what other sources preserve.

The altar at Ararat marks the transition between the old world destroyed by flood and the new world under covenant.