The Table and the Lampstand
23 “You shall make a table of acacia wood. Its length shall be two cubits, and its width a cubit, and its height one and a half cubits. 24 You shall overlay it with pure gold, and make a gold molding around it. 25 You shall make a rim of a hand width around it. You shall make a golden molding on its rim around it. 26 You shall make four rings of gold for it, and put the rings in the four corners that are on its four feet. 27 The rings shall be close to the rim, for places for the poles to carry the table. 28 You shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be carried with them. 29 You shall make its dishes, its spoons, its ladles, and its bowls with which to pour out offerings. You shall make them of pure gold. 30 You shall set bread of the presence on the table before me always. 31 “You shall make a lamp stand of pure gold. The lamp stand shall be made of hammered work. Its base, its shaft, its cups, its buds, and its flowers shall be of one piece with it. 32 There shall be six branches going out of its sides: three branches of the lamp stand out of its one side, and three branches of the lamp stand out of its other side; 33 three cups made like almond blossoms in one branch, a bud and a flower; and three cups made like almond blossoms in the other branch, a bud and a flower, so for the six branches going out of the lamp stand; 34 and in the lamp stand four cups made like almond blossoms, its buds and its flowers; 35 and a bud under two branches of one piece with it, and a bud under two branches of one piece with it, and a bud under two branches of one piece with it, for the six branches going out of the lamp stand. 36 Their buds and their branches shall be of one piece with it, all of it one beaten work of pure gold. 37 You shall make its lamps seven, and they shall light its lamps to give light to the space in front of it. 38 Its snuffers and its snuff dishes shall be of pure gold. 39 It shall be made of a talent of pure gold, with all these accessories. 40 See that you make them after their pattern, which has been shown to you on the mountain.
The holy place holds bread that is always present and a lamp shaped like a flowering tree.
You shall make a table of acacia wood... You shall set bread of the presence on the table before me always Exodus 25:23 Exodus 25:30.
Twelve loaves, one for each tribe, renewed weekly and eaten by the priests. The name in Hebrew is bread of the face — bread set before God's presence, permanently. The table is furnished as a table, with dishes, spoons, ladles and bowls, all of gold, which is to say it is laid rather than merely occupied.
What it asserts is that the twelve tribes are continually present before God, and that he provides for them. It is the manna arrangement given a permanent form: the nation that gathered bread every morning in the wilderness has its bread kept on a gold table in the holy place, always there, never absent. The one who later calls himself the bread of life John 6:35 speaks in a book that had this table in it for fifteen centuries.
“You shall make a lamp stand of pure gold. The lamp stand shall be made of hammered work. Its base, its shaft, its cups, its buds, and its flowers shall be of one piece with it.
The description is botanical throughout. Six branches from a central shaft, and on each branch three cups made like almond blossoms... a bud and a flower Exodus 25:33. This is not a lamp with decoration applied to it; it is a tree, in gold, bearing almond blossom, standing in a windowless room. Almond is the first tree to flower in the spring and the same wood that later buds overnight to settle a dispute about the priesthood Numbers 17:8.
A golden tree giving light in the innermost place a person could reach is difficult to read as anything but a deliberate echo of a garden with a tree in the middle of it, and the last book of Scripture puts that tree back Revelation 22:2.
All of it one beaten work of pure gold... It shall be made of a talent of pure gold Exodus 25:36 Exodus 25:39.
One piece, hammered from a single ingot of about seventy-five pounds. Nothing is joined, soldered or assembled; the branches are not attached to the shaft, they are the shaft, worked outward. What is spent here is enormous, and the technique is the most laborious available.
You shall make its lamps seven, and they shall light its lamps to give light to the space in front of it.
There is no window in the holy place. Every scrap of light in the room where the priests worked came from this object, and it burned oil that Israel had to supply and priests had to tend every evening and every morning Exodus 27:20–21. Light in the sanctuary is continuous and it is not automatic.
See that you make them after their pattern, which has been shown to you on the mountain.
settled What this mark means