SERIES D --- YHVH’S TABERNACLE --- LESSON 03

ALTAR AT THE DOOR

THE BRONZE ALTAR

From Exodus 27

Adonai continued His Commandments to Moses concerning the tabernacle. This is what He said: [Make a square altar seven and one-half feet wide and four and one-half feet high. Build it from acacia wood with horns attached securely at the four corners. Cover the entire altar with bronze. All the utensils to be used with the altar are to be made of bronze; ashpans, shovels, basins, fleshhooks and firepans. Make a bronze grating with four bronze rings at the four corners. Place the grating on a ledge halfway between the top and bottom of the altar. Make poles of acacia wood and cover them with bronze. To carry the altar, place the poles through the rings along the sides. Make the altar hollow, constructed with boards, as I have told you here on the mountain. Curtains of fine-twined linen will be used for the courtyard walls. The south wall and north wall will be the same; each a hundred and fifty feet long, with the curtains held up by twenty posts fitted into twenty bronze sockets. The curtains will be attached to the posts with silver hooks and rods. The west wall will be seventy-five feet long, supported by ten posts and ten sockets. The east wall will be seventy-five feet long, but the curtains will be used for just twenty-two and one-half feet on each side of the entrance. Each of these lengths of curtains will be supported by three posts fitted into their sockets. The courtyard entrance will be a blue, purple and scarlet veil, thirty feet long, made of fine-twined linen, supported by four posts set in their sockets. All the posts surrounding the courtyard will be connected by silver bands, with silver hooks and bronze sockets. The courtyard itself will measure one hundred and fifty feet in length and seventy-five feet in width. The linen walls surrounding it will be seven and one-half feet high. All the tabernacle utensils, including the pins and pegs on which the utensils are hung, will be made of bronze. Tell the people of Israel to bring gifts of pure olive oil for the tabernacle lamps so that they may burn continually. Aaron and his sons will maintain the lamp stand in the Holy Place, outside the veiled room which holds the Ark, keeping the lamps burning day and night before Adonai. This will be a statute for the people of Israel to observe throughout all generations to come.]

COMMENTARY

THE TABERNACLE: MOVING DAYS

The Israelites were constantly on the move. From the day of their departure from Egypt until their arrival in Palestine forty years later, they had to pack up their belongings and continue their march every few weeks. The tabernacle, their place of worship, had to go with them. It was designed and built in such a way that it was fairly easy to take it apart, pack its pieces and carry them. Fourteen different kinds of material were used in the building of the tabernacle and its parts. Some, like the gemstones of the priest’s ephod or breast piece, were a simple matter to move. But others were more difficult. The tabernacle’s frame and pillars were made of wood. It was taken from the acacia (a-KAY-sha) tree. That was the only wood used in the building of the tabernacle because it was the only tree in the Sinai area that was big enough to provide useful-sized boards. All the wood in the tabernacle was plated in gold or bronze. The Israelite carpenters probably used Egyptian techniques of lumbering and building. After felling the tree, they stood it upright and bound it tightly with rope. It was then sawed vertically into rough boards, which were next smoothed and straightened. Depending on what was to be made, the boards were joined together in different ways; drilled holes and pegs, nails, notches or glue. The carpenters didn’t have very many tools and those they had were rather clumsy; the saw was short and knife-like, for instance; but they did their job. In this way the craftsmen made the tabernacle and what went into it. Each item that was too large to carry by hand had carrying poles of acacia wood. The frame and supports for the sides of the tabernacle were also made of acacia wood. Each piece of wood was joined to the next by clasps or rings. That made it simple to take them apart and carry separately. The outer courtyard wall of the tabernacle was made up of curtains joined by hooks to posts. The Israelites needed only to unlatch the hooks. The tapestry-curtain walls of the tabernacle proper were held together by gold clasps and loops of ribbon. They were as easy to take down as household draperies. Several thousand pounds of bronze, silver and gold were used in the tabernacle. But the metal was spread out; from pillar bases and curtain hooks to the solid gold mercy seat; so no one item weighed too much to be carried. A definite procedure was followed on moving day. The tribe of Levi was responsible for taking apart the tabernacle and moving it properly. Only Aaron and his sons were permitted to cover the Ark; first with its inner curtain, then with tanned goats’ skin, and finally with blue cloth. Other gold and silver items were covered with goats’ skin and blue cloth. The bronze altar was wrapped in purple. When the bundles were wrapped this way and couldn’t be identified, the Kohathites; a Levite clan; were allowed to carry them; but they were not permitted to see or touch the items uncovered. If they were to touch the items uncovered, they may have been struck dead. The Gershonites carried the curtains of the tabernacle, including the sacred tent, its entrance curtain, the goats’ skin leather roof, the curtains of the courtyard fence, its entrance curtain, as well as the altar, ropes and accessories. The Merarites carried the framework of the tabernacle, the acacia wood boards, bars and bases of metal, and the pegs and cords. Ithamar, one of Aaron’s sons, was in charge of both the Gershonites and Merarites, which were both Levite clans. And so, the tent House of Worship, as designed by YHVH through Moses, went with the Israelites in their wanderings. Later it would settle in the Promised Land and remain in one place for about four hundred years.