Exodus 27

Instructions for the altar

1 Make an acacia-wood altar. The altar should be square, seven and a half feet long and seven and a half feet wide. It should be four and a half feet high.

2 Make horns for the altar and attach them to it, one horn on each of its four corners. Cover it with copper.

3 Make pails for removing its ashes and its shovels, bowls, meat forks, and trays. Make all its equipment out of copper.

4 Make for the altar a grate made of copper mesh. Make four copper rings for each of the four corners of the mesh.

5 Slide the mesh underneath the bottom edge of the altar and then extend the mesh halfway up to the middle of the altar.

6 Make acacia-wood poles for the altar and cover them with copper.

7 Put the poles through the rings so that the poles will be on the two sides of the altar when it is carried.

8 Make the altar with planks but hollow inside. All these should be made just as you were shown on the mountain.

Instructions for the dwelling’s courtyard

9 You should also set up the dwelling's courtyard. The courtyard's south side should have drapes of fine twisted linen stretching one hundred fifty feet on that side,

10 with twenty posts, twenty copper bases, and silver hooks and bands for the posts.

11 Likewise along the north side the drapes should stretch one hundred fifty feet, with twenty posts, twenty copper bases, and silver hooks and bands for the posts.

12 The courtyard's width on the west side should consist of seventy-five feet of drapes with their ten posts and their ten bases.

13 The courtyard's width on the front, facing east should be seventy-five feet.

14 There should be twenty-two and a half feet of drapes on one side with three posts and three bases for them.

15 There should be twenty-two and a half feet of drapes on the other side with three posts and three bases for them.

16 For the gate into the courtyard there will be a screen thirty feet long, made of blue, purple, and deep red yarns and of fine twisted linen, decorated with needlework. It will have four posts with their four bases.

17 All the posts around the courtyard will have silver bands, silver hooks, and copper bases.

18 The courtyard will be one hundred fifty feet long and seventy-five feet wide. Its walls' height will be seven and a half feet of fine twisted linen and its copper bases.

19 All the dwelling's equipment for any use and all its tent pegs and all the courtyard's tent pegs will be made of copper.

Olive oil for the lampstand

20 You must require the Israelites to bring you pure oil of crushed olives for the light so that the lamp may be set up to burn continually.

21 In the meeting tent, outside the veil that hangs in front of the covenant document, Aaron and his sons will tend the lamp from evening to morning in the LORD's presence. It will be a permanent regulation for the Israelites in every generation.

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.