Exodus 27

1 "Make an Altar of acacia wood. Make it seven and a half feet square and four and a half feet high.

2 Make horns at each of the four corners. The horns are to be of one piece with the Altar and covered with a veneer of bronze.

3 Make buckets for removing the ashes, along with shovels, basins, forks, and fire pans. Make all these utensils from bronze.

4 Make a grate of bronze mesh and attach bronze rings at each of the four corners.

5 Put the grate under the ledge of the Altar at the halfway point of the Altar.

6 Make acacia wood poles for the Altar and cover them with a veneer of bronze.

7 Insert the poles through the rings on the two sides of the Altar for carrying.

8 Use boards to make the Altar, keeping the interior hollow. The Courtyard

9 "Make a Courtyard for The Dwelling. The south side is to be 150 feet long. The hangings for the Courtyard are to be woven from fine twisted linen,

10 with their twenty posts, twenty bronze bases, and fastening hooks and bands of silver.

11 The north side is to be exactly the same.

12 "For the west end of the Courtyard you will need seventy-five feet of hangings with their ten posts and bases.

13 Across the seventy-five feet at the front, or east end,

14 you will need twenty-two and a half feet of hangings, with their three posts and bases on one side

15 and the same for the other side.

16 At the door of the Courtyard make a screen thirty feet long woven from blue, purple, and scarlet stuff, with fine twisted linen, embroidered by a craftsman, and hung on its four posts and bases.

17 All the posts around the Courtyard are to be banded with silver, with hooks of silver and bases of bronze.

18 The Courtyard is to be 150 feet long and seventy-five feet wide. The hangings of fine twisted linen set on their bronze bases are to be seven and a half feet high.

19 All the tools used for setting up The Holy Dwelling, including all the pegs in it and the Courtyard, are to be made of bronze.

20 "Now, order the Israelites to bring you pure, clear olive oil for light so that the lamps can be kept burning.

21 In the Tent of Meeting, the area outside the curtain that veils The Testimony, Aaron and his sons will keep this light burning from evening until morning before God. This is to be a permanent practice down through the generations for Israelites.

Exodus 27 Commentary

Chapter 27

The altar of burnt offerings. (1-8) The court of the tabernacle. (9-19) The oil for the lamps. (20,21)

Verses 1-8 In the court before the tabernacle, where the people attended, was an altar, to which they must bring their sacrifices, and on which their priests must offer them to God. It was of wood overlaid with brass. A grate of brass was let into the hollow of the altar, about the middle of which the fire was kept, and the sacrifice burnt. It was made of net-work like a sieve, and hung hollow, that the ashes might fall through. This brazen altar was a type of Christ dying to make atonement for our sins. The wood had been consumed by the fire from heaven, if it had not been secured by the brass: nor could the human nature of Christ have borne the wrath of God, if it had not been supported by Divine power.

Verses 9-19 The tabernacle was enclosed in a court, about sixty yards long and thirty broad, formed by curtains hung upon brazen pillars, fixed in brazen sockets. Within this enclosure the priests and Levites offered the sacrifices, and thither the Jewish people were admitted. These distinctions represented the difference between the visible nominal church, and the true spiritual church, which alone has access to God, and communion with him.

Verses 20-21 The pure oil signified the gifts and graces of the Spirit, which all believers receive from Christ, the good Olive, and without which our light cannot shine before men. The priests were to light the lamps, and tend them. It is the work of ministers, by preaching and expounding the Scriptures, which are as a lamp, to enlighten the church, God's tabernacle upon earth. Blessed be God, this light is not now confined to the Jewish tabernacle, but is a light to lighten the gentiles, and for salvation unto the ends of the earth.

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO EXODUS 27

This chapter treats of the altar of burnt offering, and of all things relative to it, Ex 27:1-8, of the court of the tabernacle, its hangings on each side, with pillars, sockets, and hooks for them, Ex 27:9-19 and it is concluded with an order to the Israelites to bring oil olive for the lamp of the sanctuary, Ex 27:20,21.