Instructions for the Building of the Altar and the Courtyard

(Exodus 27:1-27:21)

You should also construct an altar of red acacia wood with the dimensions 4 1/2 feet high and 7 1/2 feet square.  There should be horns at each of the four corners; they should be of one piece with the altar and overlaid with bronze.  There should be made trays to collect the ashes, as well as utensils such as shovels, basins, forks, and fire pans, all of which are to be made of bronze.  A screen-like grate of bronze, with four bronze rings at each of its four corners, should be made and placed beneath the rim of the altar so that it extends halfway down the side of the altar.  Staves should be made for the altar out of red acacia wood overlaid with bronze.  They are to be inserted through the rings on opposite sides of the altar so that it can be carried.  The altar should not be solid, but hollow inside, in accordance with the design I have shown you on the mountain.

A courtyard should be made for the Tabernacle.  On the south side there should be a partition of curtains made of finely loomed linen 150 feet long.  They should be hung on silver curtain hooks and rods between 20 posts inserted into 20 plinths of bronze.  The north side should be the same.  On the west side of the courtyard, the partition of curtains should be 75 feet in length, with ten posts and ten plinths.  That on the east side, where the entrance is, the curtains will also be 75 feet in length.  On each side of the entrance the curtains should extend for 23 feet and be supported by three posts and three plinths.   For the entrance there should be a 30 foot curtain of blue, purple, and scarlet yarn of finely loomed, decorated linen, with 4 posts and the same number of plinths. 

The posts that enclose the courtyard should have curtains rods and hooks of silver and plinths of bronze.  The length of the courtyard should be 150 feet long by 75 feet wide with a perimeter of curtains 7 1/2 feet high.  All the equipment used for services in the Tabernacle -- as well as the post dowels for the Tabernacle and the courtyard enclosure -- should be made of bronze.

Order the people of Israel to bring you the purest and finest quality olive oil so that the lamps of the menorah may burn continually.  The menorah will be placed outside the curtains that veil the Inner Sanctum wherein the Chest of Sacred Records stands.  It is the responsibility of Aaron and his sons to tend the flames to ensure they remain burning throughout the night, there before the holy presence.  And this duty will be everlasting for future generations of Israel down through the ages. 

Notes
1.  One continually gets the impression in reading all these precise instructions from Jehovah that the authors were simply recording details that had been passed down to them and probably applicable to a much later date.  Religious practices and customs regularly grow and establish themselves over a period of time.  But by asserting that they were all dictated by the divinity lends them legitimacy, if not sanctity and thwarts any challenge to their appropriateness.  To traditional societies, based on stability, change is an anathema.  Religion is often the most reliable guardian and most zealous enforcer of tradition, for its priesthood can credibly assert God's will -- "this is how it must be, for God says so."

2.  The curtains that enclosed the Tabernacle courtyard were probable hung from hooks attached to curtain rods -- how else?  But the vagueness and ambiguity of the Hebrew words  in this account has led many translators to very confusing, if not incomprehensible, descriptions of this simple matter.    

3.  Olive oil has been considered sacred by early civilizations bordering on the Mediterranean.  It was considered so by the ancient Greeks who used it to burn lamps in their temples and to fuel the famous Olympic torch.  Although the olive tree is native to Arabia as well as Palestine, one questions whether the wandering Israelites would have found sufficient numbers of wildly growing olive trees in the barren Sinai for the oil they needed.  After all, if olive trees could have been readily found there, why would the Israelites have needed manna from heaven to feed themselves?  (On the other hand, the red acacia tree, the source of the wood needed for all the lumber in the Tabernacle, does grow wild in the Sinai.)