France under Louis XV – French King: 1 September 1715 – 10 May 1774
JEWISH RABBI AT FLAMING ALTAR
1737 Dated Bronze Jeton / Token / Medal 28mm (6.69 grams)
Certification: NGC  XF 45 BN  5846612-001
LUD XV.REX CHRISTIANISS., Head of King Louis XV right.
DEVIS MINISTRAT MUNERA DIVUM CHAMB AUX DEN 1737, Rabbi kneeling right before flaming altar.

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Altars (Hebrew: מִזְבֵּחַ, mizbeaḥ, “a place of slaughter or sacrifice”) in the Hebrew Bible were typically made of earth (Exodus 20:24) or unwrought stone (20:25). Altars were generally erected in conspicuous places (Genesis 22:9; Ezekiel 6:3; 2 Kings 23:12; 16:4; 23:8). The first altar recorded in the Hebrew Bible is that erected by Noah (Genesis 8:20). Altars were erected by Abraham (Genesis 12:7; 13:4; 22:9), by Isaac (Genesis 26:25), by Jacob (33:20; 35:1-3), and by Moses (Exodus 17:15).

After the theophany on biblical Mount Sinai, in the Tabernacle-and afterwards in the Temple-only two altars are mentioned: the Altar of Burnt Offering, and the Altar of Incense.

Altar of burnt offering

The first altar was the Altar of Burnt Offering (mizbeach ha’olah) (Exodus 30:28), also called the Brasen Altar (Exodus 39:39), the Outer Altar (mizbeach hachitzona), the Earthen Altar (mizbeach adamah), the Great Altar (mizbeach hagedola) and the Table of the Lord (Malachi 1:7). This was the outdoor altar and stood in the Court the Priests, between the Temple and the Court of Israel, and upon which the korbanot (animal and bird sacrifices) were offered. The blood of the sacrifices would be thrown against the base of the altar (Exodus 29:12; Leviticus 4:18), and portions of the sacrifices would be burned on top of it (precisely which portions would depend upon the type of sacrifice). Also consumed at the altar would be some of the meat offerings, and the drink offerings (libations of wine) were poured out here. All sacrifices had to be “seasoned with salt” (Leviticus 2:13, Numbers 18:19).

A priest officiating at a burnt offering would vest in his priestly vestments before approaching the altar. He would remove the ashes and place them beside the altar. Then he would change his clothing and remove the ashes to a clean place outside the camp (Leviticus 6:10-11, Cf, 1:16).

In Exodus 27:3 the various utensils used with the altar are enumerated. They were made of brass. (Comp. 1 Samuel 2:13-14; Leviticus 16:12; Numbers 16:6-7). The altar could not be carved using utensils made of iron or of bronze (Exodus 20:25), nor were any allowed on or near it, because iron and bronze were used for implements of war. The Altar and its utensils were considered to be sacred, and the priests had to vest and wash their hands before touching them-even so much as removing the ashes from the altar.

According to the Bible, the fire on the altar was lit directly by the hand of God and was not permitted to go out (Leviticus 6:12-13). No strange fire could be placed upon the altar. The burnt offerings would remain on the altar throughout the night before they could be removed (Leviticus 6:9).

In the tabernacle  

The first altar of this type was made to be moved with the Children of Israel as they wandered through the wilderness. Its construction is described in Exodus 27:1-8. It was square, 5 cubits in length and in breadth, and 3 cubits in height. It was made of shittim wood, and was overlaid with brass. In each of its four corners projections, called “horns” (keranot), rose up. The altar was hollow, except for a mesh grate which was placed inside halfway down, on which the wood sat for the te was filled with earth. There were rings set on two opposite sides of the altar, through which poles could be placed for carrying it. These poles were also made of shittim wood and covered with brass.

When Moses consecrated the Tabernacle in the wilderness, he sprinkled the Altar of Burnt Offering with the anointing oil seven times (Leviticus 8:10-11), and purified it by anointing its four horns with the blood of a bullock offered as a sin-offering, “and poured the blood at the bottom of the altar and sanctified it, to make reconciliation upon it” (8:14-15).

The Kohathites were the Levites who were responsible for moving and setting up the altar. When it was time for the Israelites to move, they removed the ashes from the altar, and spread a purple cloth over it, placed all of the instruments and vessels used in the sacrifices on it, covered it with a blanket of badger skin, and put the carrying poles in place (Numbers 4:13-14). After the rebellion of Korah, the bronze censers that were used by the rebels were converted by Eleazar into broad plates used to cover the altar, as a warning that only priests of the seed of Aaron may offer incense before the Lord (Numbers 16:36-40).

In the Temple

The description of the altar in Solomon’s Temple gives it larger dimensions (2 Chronicles 4:1. Comp. 1 Kings 8:22, 8:64; 9:25), and was made wholly of brass, covering a structure of stone or earth. Because this altar was larger than the one used in the wilderness, it had a ramp leading up to it. H ramp was used because the use of steps to approach the altar was forbidden by the Torah: “Do not climb up to My altar with steps, so that your nakedness not be revealed on it” (Exodus 20:26). On the day of the consecration of the new temple, Solomon also sanctified a space in the center of the Court of the Priests for burnt offerings, because the brasen altar he made was not large enough to hold all of the offerings (2 Chronicles 7:7).

This altar was said to be renewed by Asa (2 Chronicles 15:8) and removed by Ahaz (2 Kings 16:14), and “cleansed” by Hezekiah, in the latter part of whose reign it was rebuilt. It was finally broken up and carried away by the Babylonians in 586 BCE (Jeremiah 52:17).

After their return from the Babylonian captivity according to the biblical narrative it was re-erected (Ezra 3:3-6) where it had formerly stood. When Antiochus IV Epiphanes pillaged Jerusalem, he defiled the Altar of Burnt Offering by erecting a pagan altar upon it. Judas Maccabeus renewed the altar when he re-took Jerusalem. Since the existing altar had been defiled by the blood of pagan sacrifices the old stones of the altar were removed and replaced with new, unhewn ones. However, since the old stones had been previously sanctified by the Jewish sacrifices they could not be moved to an unclean place; so they remained on the Temple Mount, “until there should come a prophet to tell what to do with them.” (1 Maccabees 4:41-47).

During Herod the Great’s extensive building activity on the Temple Mount, it was likely refurbished. Talmudic scholars give a very precise description of the altar during the Second Temple period. The altar was built as a perfect square and was quite large: it reached a height of 10 cubits (app. 5 meters) and its width was 32 cubits (app. 16 meters). It was constructed of two main parts: the altar itself, and the ascent ramp. Both were constructed of stones and earth. On top of the altar at its four corners, there were hollow boxes which made small protrusions or “horns.” These horns measured one cubit square and 5 handbreadths high, each (or, app. 18″ x 18″ x 15″). In this form, the altar remained in its place until the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE.

Today, in the Dome of the Rock, immediately underneath the great golden dome, which is believed to occupy the site of the old temple, there is a rough projection of the natural rock known as the Foundation Stone, measuring about 60 feet in its extreme length, 50 feet in its greatest breadth, and at its highest point about 4 feet above the pavement.

Altar of Incense

The second altar was the Altar of Incense (mizbach haketoros) (Exodus 30:1-10), called also the Golden Altar (mizbach hazahav) (39:38; Numbers 4:11), and the Inner Altar (mizbach hap’nimi) stood inside, in the Holy Place “before the Veil that is by the Ark of the Covenant.”

The altar was constructed of shittim wood (acacia wood) and covered in pure gold. It was an upright rectangular stand, measuring one cubit wide, one cubit deep, and two cubits high, with a “horn” on each corner, a border of gold around the top, and rings on opposite sides through which poles could be passed to carry it (Exodus 37:25-26). The poles were made of shittim wood covered with gold. Moses consecrated the altar with the anointing oil when the Tabernacle was dedicated (Exodus 40:9).

Incense was burned daily on this altar at the time of the morning and the evening sacrifices. The coals used on this altar had to be taken from the Altar of Burnt Offerings. The incense used had to be made according to a specific formula (Exodus 30:34-35), and no other incense was permitted (Exodus 30:9). According to Jewish tradition, the incense was made by the Avtinas family, who closely guarded its secret. The offering of incense also had to be seasoned with salt.

The offering of incense was the apex of the daily morning and the evening services. According to the Rabbis, this was the part of the temple service that was most beloved by God (Zohar I 130:A). The burning of the incense was symbolic of the prayer of the people rising up to God (Psalm 141:2; Revelation 5:8; 8:3-4). The offering of incense had to take place after the sacrifice, because only after the atonement could communion with God take place. After the offering of incense, the Kohenim (priests) pronounced the Priestly Blessing upon the people.

Whenever certain sin-offerings were brought, the coals from the incense that was lit that morning were pushed aside and the blood of the “inner sin-offering” was sprinkled seven times on the top of the Golden Altar (Leviticus 4:5-7).

Once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Altar of Incense was purified (Exodus 30:10, Leviticus 16:18-19). The High Priest, after sacrificing a bull and a goat and purifying the Holy of Holies with their blood, would mix the blood of the two animals together. Then, starting at the northeast corner, he smeared the mixture of blood on each of the four corners of the Golden Altar. He then sprinkled the blood eight times on the altar.

In Solomon’s temple the altar was similar in size, but was made of cedar-wood (1 Kings 6:20; 7:48) overlaid with gold. In Ezekiel 41:22 it is called “the altar of wood.” (Comp. Exodus 30:1-6)

In the temple rebuilt after the Babylonian Exile the Golden Altar was restored. Antiochus Epiphanes took it away, but it was afterwards restored by Judas Maccabeus (1 Maccabees 1:23; 4:49). It was at this altar that Zechariah ministered when an angel appeared to him (Luke 1:11). Among the trophies carried away by Titus after the destruction of Jerusalem, and depicted on the Arch of Titus in Rome, the Altar of Incense is not depicted, though the menorah, silver trumpets (the hasoserah mentioned in Numbers 10:2-10), the mortar and pestle used for preparing the incense, and possibly the Table of Showbread are.

It should be mentioned that there are other offerings involving incense, such as the meat offerings, but these were consumed on the Altar of Burnt Offering, not on the Altar of Incense. On the day of Yom Kippur only, the High Priest would offer incense in the Holy of Holies.

Jetons or jettons are tokens or coin-like medals produced across Europe from the 13th through the 17th centuries. They were produced as counters for use in calculation on a counting board, a lined board similar to an abacus. They also found use as a money substitute in games, similar to modern casino chips or poker chips.

Thousands of different jetons exist, mostly of religious and educational designs, as well as portraits, the last of which most resemble coinage, somewhat similar to modern, non-circulation commemorative coins. The spelling “jeton” is from the French; the English spell it “jetton”.

Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defined as his 13th birthday) on 15 February 1723, the kingdom was ruled by Philippe II, Duke of Orl?ns, as Regent of France. Cardinal Fleury was his chief minister from 1726 until the Cardinal’s death in 1743, at which time the young king took sole control of the kingdom.

His reign of almost 59 years (from 1715-1774) was the second longest in the history of France, exceeded only by his predecessor and great-grandfather, Louis XIV who ruled for 72 years (from 1643-1715). In 1748, Louis returned the Austrian Netherlands, won at the Battle of Fontenoy of 1745. He ceded New France in North America to Spain and Great Britain at the conclusion of the disastrous Seven Years’ War in 1763. He incorporated the territories of the Duchy of Lorraine and the Corsican Republic into the Kingdom of France. He was succeeded in 1774 by his grandson Louis XVI, who was executed by guillotine during the French Revolution. Two of his other grandsons, Louis XVIII and Charles X, occupied the throne of France after the fall of Napoleon I. Historians generally give his reign very low marks, especially as wars drained the treasury and set the stage for the governmental collapse and French Revolution in the 1780s.  

France, officially the French Republic (French: République française), is a sovereign state comprising territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European part of France, called Metropolitan France, extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. France spans 640,679 square kilometres (247,368 sq mi) and has a total population of 67 million. It is a unitary semi-presidential republic with the capital in Paris, the country’s largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. The Constitution of France establishes the state as secular and democratic, with its sovereignty derived from the people.

During the Iron Age, what is now Metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The Gauls were conquered in 51 BC by the Roman Empire, which held Gaul until 486. The Gallo-Romans faced raids and migration from the Germanic Franks, who dominated the region for hundreds of years, eventually creating the medieval Kingdom of France. France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years’ War (1337 to 1453) strengthening French state-building and paving the way for a future centralized absolute monarchy. During the Renaissance, France experienced a vast cultural development and established the beginning of a global colonial empire. The 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots).

France became Europe’s dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV. French philosophers played a key role in the Age of Enlightenment during the 18th century. In 1778, France became the first and the main ally of the new United States in the American Revolutionary War. In the late 18th century, the absolute monarchy was overthrown in the French Revolution. Among its legacies was the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, one of the earliest documents on human rights, which expresses the nation’s ideals to this day. France became one of modern history’s earliest republics until Napoleon took power and launched the First French Empire in 1804. Fighting against a complex set of coalitions during the Napoleonic Wars, he dominated European affairs for over a decade and had a long-lasting impact on Western culture. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments: the monarchy was restored, it was replaced in 1830 by a constitutional monarchy, then briefly by a Second Republic, and then by a Second Empire, until a more lasting French Third Republic was established in 1870. By the 1905 law, France adopted a strict form of secularism, called laïcité, which has become an important federative principle in the modern French society.

France reached its territorial height during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it ultimately possessed the second-largest colonial empire in the world. In World War I, France was one of the main winners as part of the Triple Entente alliance fighting against the Central Powers. France was also one of the Allied Powers in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis Powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War. The Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Following World War II, most of the empire became decolonized.

Throughout its long history, France has been a leading global center of culture, making significant contributions to art, science, and philosophy. It hosts Europe’s third-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites (after Italy and Spain) and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, the most of any country in the world. France remains a great power with significant cultural, economic, military, and political influence. It is a developed country with the world’s sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and eight-largest by purchasing power parity. According to Credit Suisse, France is the fourth wealthiest nation in the world in terms of aggregate household wealth. It also possesses the world’s second-largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ), covering 11,035,000 square kilometres (4,261,000 sq mi).

French citizens enjoy a high standard of living, and the country performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, civil liberties, and human development. France is a founding member of the United Nations, where it serves as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. It is a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and La Francophonie. France is a founding and leading member state of the European Union (EU).