The Altar and the Court
1 “You shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long, and five cubits wide. The altar shall be square. Its height shall be three cubits. 2 You shall make its horns on its four corners. Its horns shall be of one piece with it. You shall overlay it with bronze. 3 You shall make its pots to take away its ashes; and its shovels, its basins, its meat hooks, and its fire pans. You shall make all its vessels of bronze. 4 You shall make a grating for it of network of bronze. On the net you shall make four bronze rings in its four corners. 5 You shall put it under the ledge around the altar beneath, that the net may reach halfway up the altar. 6 You shall make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with bronze. 7 Its poles shall be put into the rings, and the poles shall be on the two sides of the altar when carrying it. 8 You shall make it hollow with planks. They shall make it as it has been shown you on the mountain. 9 “You shall make the court of the tabernacle: for the south side southward there shall be hangings for the court of fine twined linen one hundred cubits long for one side. 10 Its pillars shall be twenty, and their sockets twenty, of bronze. The hooks of the pillars and their fillets shall be of silver. 11 Likewise for the length of the north side, there shall be hangings one hundred cubits long, and its pillars twenty, and their sockets twenty, of bronze; the hooks of the pillars, and their fillets, of silver. 12 For the width of the court on the west side shall be hangings of fifty cubits; their pillars ten, and their sockets ten. 13 The width of the court on the east side eastward shall be fifty cubits. 14 The hangings for the one side of the gate shall be fifteen cubits; their pillars three, and their sockets three. 15 For the other side shall be hangings of fifteen cubits; their pillars three, and their sockets three. 16 For the gate of the court shall be a screen of twenty cubits, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, the work of the embroiderer; their pillars four, and their sockets four. 17 All the pillars of the court around shall be filleted with silver; their hooks of silver, and their sockets of bronze. 18 The length of the court shall be one hundred cubits, and the width fifty throughout, and the height five cubits, of fine twined linen, and their sockets of bronze. 19 All the instruments of the tabernacle in all its service, and all its pins, and all the pins of the court, shall be of bronze.
The first object inside the gate is where things die, and the court has one entrance a hundred feet wide.
“You shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long, and five cubits wide. The altar shall be square. Its height shall be three cubits.
The largest single object in the sanctuary and the first thing anyone entering the court would meet. Roughly seven and a half feet square and four and a half high, overlaid not with gold but with bronze — the metal used everywhere in the outer court, as gold is used everywhere inside. The gradient of materials tracks the gradient of nearness, and a worshiper coming in from the camp moves from bronze toward gold without being told he is doing it.
You shall make its horns on its four corners. Its horns shall be of one piece with it. You shall overlay it with bronze.
The horns are where the blood of the sin offering is applied Leviticus 4:7 and what a man in danger of his life took hold of when he fled to the sanctuary 1 Kings 1:50. They are not attachments. The place of refuge and the place of sacrifice are the same object, made from one piece.
You shall make it hollow with planks Exodus 27:8. Hollow, because it has to be carried; the fire burned on a bronze grating inside a wooden box that would have burned without it. Like everything else here, it is designed to be picked up and moved.
The order of the furniture is the order of approach, and it is fixed. Altar, then basin, then the holy place with its bread and light, then the veil, then the ark. Nobody reaches the second item without passing the first. Whatever else the sanctuary teaches, it puts a death at the entrance and does not offer a route around it.
“You shall make the court of the tabernacle: for the south side southward there shall be hangings for the court of fine twined linen one hundred cubits long for one side.
A rectangle of about a hundred and fifty feet by seventy-five, walled with linen hung on bronze-socketed pillars to a height of about seven and a half feet Exodus 27:18 — high enough that no one outside could see in, low enough that the tent's covering showed above it. The boundary is fabric. It could be cut through anywhere, and its authority is not structural.
For the gate of the court shall be a screen of twenty cubits, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, the work of the embroiderer; their pillars four, and their sockets four.
One gate, on the east side, thirty feet wide. The whole perimeter is plain white linen except this, which carries the same four colors as the veil and the ceiling. There is exactly one way in and it is impossible to miss — no side doors, no second entrance for the tribes camped on the far side, and the widest opening the design allows.
settled What this mark means