One of the areas of the Torah that often gets overlooked are the different meanings between the offerings. We tend to jumble them all together, even though the text has different names for the offerings, and does not use them interchangeably.
For example, Noach is the first to offer an Oloh, an elevation offering (also translated as “burnt offering”). This kind of offering is clearly meant to elevate upward, to connect heaven and earth. It is about life and death – which is interesting because the root word for oloh in Hebrew ol, is found in Genesis in exactly 300 verses. On the third day, G-d created plants, he created life – and the inevitability of death. The third day was special, because G-d labels it “good” two separate times: when the water gathers together (unifies) to form seas, and when the earth brings forth grass, herb yielding seed, fruit trees – and their seeds. Life was formed on the third day, concurrent with the inevitable accompaniment of death and the notion of regeneration.
And plants grow upward, just like the Oloh, the elevation offering. The number 3 is consistently deployed in the Torah – and it all connects to the concept of the elevation-offering, and the core word, ol.
A more obscure offering is the zevach. But in the first book of the Torah, the zevach is quite distinct. It was first offered by Jacob when he sees his father-in-law, Lavan, for the last time: Jacob zevached up a zevach on the Height, and called his brothers to eat bread. (G. 31:54)
The next zevach in the Torah is many years later, when Jacob is about to leave Canaan and go live with Joseph in Egypt: So Israel set out with all that was his, and he came to Beer-sheba, where he zevached zevachim to the G-d of his father Isaac. (G. 46:1).
Note what these have in common: A zevach is a travel offering! And why might that be? I think it is because journeys in the ancient world were terrifying things to embark on, and they required enormous faith in order to even attempt. In the ancient world, people simply could not know what might happen – from bandits to hostile natives to wild animals, or weather events that impede journey. Uncertainty leads us toward seeking reassuring connections, which is exactly what Jacob was doing.
To reiterate: In both of the Jacob cases, a zevach is offered after the first stage of the journey, when crossing borders between lands.
Which might help explain Pharoah’s response when a zevach is next mentioned in the Torah: G-d says to Moshe: You shall go with the elders of Israel to the king of Egypt and you shall say to him, ‘The ETERNAL, the God of the Hebrews, became manifest to us. Now therefore, let us go a distance of three days into the wilderness and we will zevach to the Lord our G-d. … They answered [to Pharoah], “The God of the Hebrews has become manifest to us. Let us go, we pray, a distance of three days into the wilderness where we will zevach to the Lord our G-d.” (E. 3:18 and 5:3) (Following this, every time sacrificing to G-d is mentioned between Pharoah and the people, the word zevach is used.)
What is Pharoah’s response? He tells the taskmasters to “not heed false words.” (E. 5:9). This is the first time in the Torah that “false words” appears, and Pharoah, if he knew the history of the Zevach as told in the Torah, was right! Since Moses used the word “zevach,” it could only mean that the people intended to travel across the border, to depart from Egypt. The Zevach of the Children of Israel is meant to be a farewell to Egypt just as Israel said farewell to Lavan! Which means that the Hebrews were indeed speaking falsely!
Zevach to Mizbeach: Zevach is the root word for altar, mizbeach – only the addition of a single prefix letter (mem) separates them. The Torah illustrates that the purpose of a mizbeach in Genesis is tightly linked to the purpose of a Zevach.
Consider: the first mizbeach is built by Noach, after he is delivered through the Flood. It is the end of his journey, marking his personal salvation.
The next incidences of Mizbeach start with Avram: Upon arriving at the gateway city of the land, Shechem: [Avram] built a mizbeach there to G-D who had appeared to him. (12:7) From there he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent … and he built there a mizbeach to G-D and invoked G-D by name. (G. 12:8). And he proceeded by stages from the Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been formerly, between Bethel and Ai, the site of the mizbeach that he had built there at first; and there Abram invoked G-D by name. (13:3)… And Abram moved his tent, and came to dwell at the terebinths of Mamre, which are in Hebron; and he built a mizbeach there to GOD. (13:18) Isaac does it, too: From there [Isaac] went up to Beer-sheba. … So [Isaac] built a mizbeach there and invoked G-D by name. (26:23). And then Jacob: Jacob arrived safe in the city of Shechem that is in the land of Canaan—having come thus from Paddan-aram—and he encamped before the city. … He set up a mizbeach there, and called it El-elohe-yisrael. (33:18)
The Torah is consistent: while a zevach marks the first stage of a big journey, a mizbeach is what a person builds when they arrive at their destination! A mizbeach seems to mark deliverance at the end of the journey!
G-d commands Jacob to use it for just this purpose: G-d said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and remain there; and build a mizbeach there to the G-d who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.” Jacob said to his household … Come, let us go up to Bethel, and I will build a mizbeach there to the God who answered me when I was in distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.”… Thus Jacob came to Luz—that is, Bethel—in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. There he built a mizbeach and named the site El-bethel, for it was there that G-d had been revealed to him when he was fleeing from his brother. (35:1-7) The mizbeach marks salvation, giving G-d the credit for our deliverance!
Indeed, the mizbeach could be an attempt to create a physical record for posterity. We know this because when G-d commands Moses to write something down, Moses builds a mizbeach to record the divine deliverance! Then GOD said to Moses, “Inscribe this in a book as a reminder, and read it aloud to Joshua: I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven!” What does Moses do? He does not write a book. Instead: And Moses built a mizbeach and named it Adonai-nissi. He said, “It means, ‘Hand upon the throne of Y-h!’ G-D will be at war with Amalek throughout the ages.” (E. 17:14-16)
The Torah is showing us that an altar, a mizbeach, has a very specific symbolic meaning: crediting G-d with deliverance at the end of a journey. And it is done by erecting a physical structure.
Yet: after the wilderness, a mizbeach, an altar, ceases to be something that a person spontaneously builds. Instead, the Torah tells us that once we enter the land we, as a people, no longer will be able to offer sacrifices anywhere we like. Instead, we must only do so at the permanent location that G-d will choose.
The journey of the Jewish people has reached its destination when we have a tabernacle/temple. In the end, all the important journeys are to Jerusalem, to G-d’s House. That mizbeach replaces all others, forever more.
P.S. See Deut. 33:18 for the last incidence of zevah in the Torah – also marking journey.