Comentários de Citação sobre Números 4:26

You should know that the overall height of this altar was ten cubits (not three as written in our verse, compare Zevachim 59). If the Torah wrote that its height was three cubits, this is a reference to the area on which the actual offerings were presented (from the סובב, “ledge” upwards to the corners).
Proof that the overall height from its foundations was ten cubits is offered in Bamidbar Rabbah 6,3 where the Midrash examines the words רבוע יהיה, “it shall be square.” The words are considered superfluous. Therefore the Midrash considers them as providing a lesson comparable to another similar expression used in connection with the altar of the incense (30,2). There the Torah writes that its width and length was to be 1 cubit each and its height was to be 2 cubits. There too the Torah adds the words רבוע יהיה, “it shall be square.” We are entitled to conclude (thanks to the two expressions “it shall be square,”) that just as the altar for incense was twice as high as it was wide and long, so the copper altar should be proportioned similarly. Seeing it was five cubits wide and long, it would have an overall height of ten cubits. In view of this we remain with the problem that in our chapter the Torah described the height of the copper altar as being three cubits. Is this not a contradiction? Answer: the three cubits measured by the Torah in connection with the copper altar begin from the ledge which ran around it on which the priest would stand.
Furthermore, it is worth studying what the Talmud (Sukkah 45) tells us about the willow branches which would be placed around this altar on the festival of Tabernacles. According to the description in the Talmud the tops of these willow branches would be right next to the top of the altar, bending down a little towards its top. These willow branches are described as having a length of eleven cubits. They were of that length in order to be able to exceed the height of the altar by a little, i.e. by one cubit.
In Zevachim 59 our sages explained that the altar which Moses erected was 10 cubits high as it has been compared to the altar in the Tabernacle according to what is written (Numbers 4,26) “and the lace-hangings of the Courtyard and the Screen of the entrance of the gate of the Courtyard which were around the Tabernacle and the Altar, etc.” Just as the Tabernacle itself was ten cubits high so the altar was ten cubits high also. There is also a clear verse in connection with the altar erected by Solomon for his Temple which describes its height as being ten cubits (Chronicles II 4,1). [In that instance the height of the altar was half that of its width and length rather than double. Ed.]

"They learn from the doorway of the courtyard gate" - He objects regarding the width, as we learned in the Mishnah, "and the width [must be] less than ten cubits." Now, we find the doorway of the courtyard, which was twenty [cubits] wide, and it is called "doorway," as it is written, "and the curtains of the courtyard, and the screen for the doorway of the courtyard gate," written in the section of Naso. But regarding the height, to disqualify [a doorway] with a height greater than five cubits, he cannot object, for we find the doorway of the Temple, which was twenty [cubits] high, and it calls it "doorway."

ואת מיתריו AND THE CORDS OF IT — This means: those of “the dwelling” (the lower curtains) and of “the tent” (the upper curtains), and not those of the enclosure (חצר) mentioned in this verse [although some of these are stated in Numbers 4:26 to be in charge of the Gershonites].