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Biblion Bible Commentary

Read the introduction to Exodus · About this commentary

The Altar and the Court

Exodus 27:1-19

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. · WEB

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 Exodus 27:1.

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 Exodus 27:2.

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 Exodus 27:9.

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 Exodus 27:16.

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.

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