Note 16 — Chapter XVII
Reading edition
It may interest the reader to know that the Holy Ghost, in speaking of the altar of God in the New Testament, does not apply to it the word used to express a heathen altar, but has a comparatively new word—a word unknown in the world's classics. The heathen altar is βωμόν (Acts xvii. 23.): the altar of God is θυσιαστήριον. The former occurs but once; the latter, twenty-three times. So jealously is the worship of the only true God guarded and preserved from the defiling touch of heathen idolatry. Men may feel disposed to inquire why this should be, or how could the altar of God be affected by a name? We reply, The Holy Ghost is wiser than we are; and although the heathen word was before Him—a short and convenient word, too,—He refuses to apply it to the altar of the one true and living God.
See Trench's "Synonyms of the New Testament," p. 242. New edition revised.