Following the formation of a formal altar with the establishment of the Tabernacle and Temple, the altar becomes a place of: worship, encounter, communion as well as atonement (through offerings for sin), and renewed commitment (as practiced by Joshua). …But then it became a place of compromise.

Eventually the situation became, in the time of the Kings, to be like this: (1 Kings 18:30) Then Elijah said to all the people,