They Built an Altar

One of the first things that the children of Israel did when they went back to Jerusalem from Persia under the decree of Cyrus was to build an altar where they could perform sacrifice.  After the people committed to rebuilding the temple, which would take about 20 years, the Israelites all gathered together at Jerusalem.  We read, “Then stood up Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God.  And they set the altar upon his bases; for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries: and they offered burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening” (Ezra 3:2-3).  It is instructive that this was their first priority—though over 50 years had passed since the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, they have not lost sight of the Lord’s command to offer sacrifice unto the Lord under the Law of Moses.  And despite the fact that the temple was not yet complete, or even really begun, they didn’t wait to build the altar of the temple to start performing the functions of the temple.  This is perhaps not unlike the Saints at Nauvoo who used the unfinished temple to perform baptisms and other ordinances despite the fact that the house wasn’t complete.   

               There are several other scriptural passages that describe those who similarly built altars and showed their anxiety to sacrifice and worship the Lord according to His commands.  For example, after Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden of Eden, we read, “And he gave unto them commandments, that they should worship the Lord their God, and should offer the firstlings of their flocks, for an offering unto the Lord. And Adam was obedient unto the commandments of the Lord. And after many days an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me” (Moses 5:5-6).  Though this doesn’t explicitly mention an altar, it seems implied that he was at an altar (and the online version of scriptures associates a picture of Adam and Eve at an altar with this chapter).  Clearly Adam was anxious to perform the commands of the Lord and make sacrifices to him as one of the first things he did in mortality.  Abraham was another who offered sacrifice at an altar.  After he left Haran, he journeyed towards the land of Canaan.  Though he didn’t even have a home built—he wrote that “eternity was our covering and our rock and our salvation”—he built an altar to worship the Lord: “Now I, Abraham, built an altar in the land of Jershon, and made an offering unto the Lord, and prayed that the famine might be turned away from my father’s house, that they might not perish” (Abraham 2:16-17). 

On a similar journey Jacob also built an altar to worship the Lord.  When he was fleeing from his brother Esau, we read, “So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, that is, Beth-el, he and all the people that were with him. And he built there an altar, and called the place El-beth-el: because there God appeared unto him, when he fled from the face of his brother” (Genesis 35:6-7).  Again, though he was out in the open and surely could have spent his time worrying about physical shelter and meeting his own needs as he wandered alone, he put spiritual things first and built an altar to the Lord to worship.  In the Book of Mormon Lehi also showed similarly his devotion to the Lord.  As soon as they had escaped from Jerusalem and were in the wilderness, he too built an altar. “And it came to pass that he built an altar of stones, and made an offering unto the Lord, and gave thanks unto the Lord our God” (1 Nephi 2:7).  In all of these accounts, though the people and prophets had much to worry about in terms of physically providing for their needs—the Israelites had just arrived in Jerusalem that was in ruins, and Adam, Abraham, Jacob, and Lehi all had little in the way of physical comforts— when they were building their altars.  And yet they focused first on worshiping the Lord and offering sacrifice to Him, and they were blessed for it.  Surely there a lesson for us in their stories for how we should prioritize sacrifice and our worship of the Lord over providing physical possessions for ourselves.