[Exodus 38] Outer Court Access Brings Inner Court Glory. In this chapter, the account of fashioning the Tabernacle of Moses continues. Bezaleel builds the Altar of Burnt Offering, the Laver for Washing, and other things that speak to us of the sacrifice of Christ and the place of His word to wash the believer in the truth of His word.
[Exo 38:1-31 KJV] 1 And he made the altar of burnt offering [of] shittim wood: five cubits [was] the length thereof, and five cubits the breadth thereof; [it was] foursquare; and three cubits the height thereof. 2 And he made the horns thereof on the four corners of it; the horns thereof were of the same: and he overlaid it with brass. 3 And he made all the vessels of the altar, the pots, and the shovels, and the basons, [and] the fleshhooks, and the firepans: all the vessels thereof made he [of] brass. 4 And he made for the altar a brasen grate of network under the compass thereof beneath unto the midst of it. 5 And he cast four rings for the four ends of the grate of brass, [to be] places for the staves. 6 And he made the staves [of] shittim wood, and overlaid them with brass. 7 And he put the staves into the rings on the sides of the altar, to bear it withal; he made the altar hollow with boards. 8 And he made the laver [of] brass, and the foot of it [of] brass, of the lookingglasses of [the women] assembling, which assembled [at] the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation. 9 And he made the court: on the south side southward the hangings of the court [were of] fine twined linen, an hundred cubits: 10 Their pillars [were] twenty, and their brasen sockets twenty; the hooks of the pillars and their fillets [were of] silver. 11 And for the north side [the hangings were] an hundred cubits, their pillars [were] twenty, and their sockets of brass twenty; the hooks of the pillars and their fillets [of] silver. 12 And for the west side [were] hangings of fifty cubits, their pillars ten, and their sockets ten; the hooks of the pillars and their fillets [of] silver. 13 And for the east side eastward fifty cubits. 14 The hangings of the one side [of the gate were] fifteen cubits; their pillars three, and their sockets three. 15 And for the other side of the court gate, on this hand and that hand, [were] hangings of fifteen cubits; their pillars three, and their sockets three. 16 All the hangings of the court round about [were] of fine twined linen. 17 And the sockets for the pillars [were of] brass; the hooks of the pillars and their fillets [of] silver; and the overlaying of their chapiters [of] silver; and all the pillars of the court [were] filleted with silver. 18 And the hanging for the gate of the court [was] needlework, [of] blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen: and twenty cubits [was] the length, and the height in the breadth [was] five cubits, answerable to the hangings of the court. 19 And their pillars [were] four, and their sockets [of] brass four; their hooks [of] silver, and the overlaying of their chapiters and their fillets [of] silver. 20 And all the pins of the Tabernacle, and of the court round about, [were of] brass. 21 This is the sum of the Tabernacle, [even] of the Tabernacle of testimony, as it was counted, according to the commandment of Moses, [for] the service of the Levites, by the hand of Ithamar, son to Aaron the priest. 22 And Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made all that the LORD commanded Moses. 23 And with him [was] Aholiab, son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver, and a cunning workman, and an embroiderer in blue, and in purple, and in scarlet, and fine linen. 24 All the gold that was occupied for the work in all the work of the holy [place], even the gold of the offering, was twenty and nine talents, and seven hundred and thirty shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary. 25 And the silver of them that were numbered of the congregation [was] an hundred talents, and a thousand seven hundred and threescore and fifteen shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary: 26 A bekah for every man, [that is], half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for every one that went to be numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty [men]. 27 And of the hundred talents of silver were cast the sockets of the sanctuary, and the sockets of the vail; an hundred sockets of the hundred talents, a talent for a socket. 28 And of the thousand seven hundred seventy and five shekels he made hooks for the pillars, and overlaid their chapiters, and filleted them. 29 And the brass of the offering [was] seventy talents, and two thousand and four hundred shekels. 30 And therewith he made the sockets to the door of the Tabernacle of the congregation, and the brasen altar, and the brasen grate for it, and all the vessels of the altar, 31 And the sockets of the court round about, and the sockets of the court gate, and all the pins of the Tabernacle, and all the pins of the court round about.
Chapter 38 continues the rehearsal of Bezalel and Aholiab’s fashioning of the articles and artifacts in the Tabernacle of Moses. The order in which these artifacts were built is not random (vs. 1-7). The progression speaks of God’s process in your life concerning your relationship with Him, your needs, and His priorities and kingdom purpose.
In chapter 37, we see the order:
The Ark of the Testimony (Relationship and Intimacy)
The Table of Shewbread (Healing and Provision)
The Lampstand (Understanding and Enlightenment)
The Altar of Incense (Prayer)
Now in chapter 38, the procession continues:
The Brazen Altar (signifying repentance for the believer and the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf.)
The Laver (Cleansing of the washing of the word.)
The Hangings of Linen (The Righteousness of the Believer in Christ)
The Gate of Blue, Purple, Scarlet, Linen (speaking of Prayer, Royalty, Protection, and Righteousness).
The Brazen Altar:
This is where the Israelites would bring their sin offerings and their consecration offerings. They would stand by while the priests offered them up to God “as a sweet-smelling savor.” We wonder why God’s favor seems to be so strong on the Jewish people. Perhaps an explanation is the thousands of years they were trained by these ceremonial rites to give so liberally and so often in the expression of their love for God and acknowledgment of their need of a Savior. They built up a generational blessing that still blesses them today.
The Brazen Altar is where the lamb was offered once a year for the sins of the people. This is a type of Jesus himself. It speaks of salvation and repentance. The Altar in the Old Testament is a shadow of the Altar of Spiritual Substance we approach to accept the sacrifice of Christ for our sins. It is the first transaction between man and God that we are participators in.
The Laver:
The laver (bowl) was made of the hand mirrors of the women of Israel (v. 8). Here the priests, before moving from the outer court to the inner court, would wash at this laver. It speaks of the washing of the water of the word (referred to in Eph. 5:26; 2 Cor. 3:18; James 1:23).
The Hangings of Linen (vs. 9-17):
The outer court’s inner walls were of white linen, which speaks to us of the righteousness of Christ, and the exterior panels were of blue speaking to us of prayer covering. 1 Cor. 1:30,31 tells us that Jesus is our righteousness. This is how God wants us to see ourselves WITHIN the provisions of His righteousness. Notice that it is IN the context of this provided righteousness that God does business with us to cleanse, heal, and deliver and fashion us into His image. He doesn’t just deposit us into His righteousness; rather, He clothes us in righteousness and then initiates us into the process of perfection that all of these artifacts represent.
The Gate (v. 18-20):
In the Gospel of John Jesus said:
[Jhn 10:9 KJV] 9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
This gate was the means of ingress or entering the Tabernacle from the outside. Jesus identifies Himself with this gate and defines it and Himself as the means by which we enter into a relationship with the Father. It speaks of what He has done for us, and the ultimate goal of providing access to all that relationship with the Father affords and represents.
The Gate is the first thing we encounter – implying that all we have to do is draw near, and He takes us into His custody and shepherds us into God’s process by which He heals, perfects, and brings us to intimacy with Him.
Blue:
The blue dye is also an ingredient of the sacred incense that represents prayer. Jesus ever liveth to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:25).
Purple:
Purple is the universal symbol of rule and authority. In Rev. 1:6, it reads that God in Christ has made us KINGS and PRIESTS and that we shall REIGN on the earth. Notice this is not an achievement, but rather it is a FATHER FACT, something that He did for us, and our role is to believe and respond to the Father and to our environment as though we believe it is true.
Scarlet:
Scarlet speaks of the saving characteristics of the blood of Christ. To the Israelites, this was living memory. They had sprinkled the blood on the doorposts on the evening of that terrible night when every firstborn of Egypt died. The Lord told them, “when I see the blood – I will pass over you…” The judgment of God is continually upon an unwashed, unregenerate world. The Israelites applied the blood with the branch of a Hyssop bush. We apply the blood as the serum of our faith in Jesus Christ not only as Savior but Lord. The angel didn’t pause to see if the house was worthy on its own merits – he looked only for the blood and passed by. There is a difference between us and those who reject Christ. It is the difference delineated by the shed blood of Calvary.
Linen:
Jesus is our righteousness. Your actions or your own merits do not determine righteousness before God. God accepts you and inducts you into His process of relationship, healing, and perfection because of who Jesus is and what He did for you not because of who you are or what you have or have not done.
The Sum of the Tabernacle. In vs. 21-31, the weight and amounts are given of silver, gold, and brass used in the construction of the Tabernacle. The vital thing to note is that the unit of measurement is the “shekel of the sanctuary.”
The shekel of the sanctuary was not as much a coin as a weight (twenty gerahs). It was the weight of the redemption money that every Israelite was required to pa yearly because of the sparing of the firstborn in Egypt. The idea held that they were not their own. They had been spared and ransomed out of Egypt, and from that point onward their lives were on loan from God.
The redemption money was half a shekel of the shekel of the sanctuary. The word used here for “half a shekel” is the Hebrew word “bekah”, meaning “divided.” When the Israelites departed Egypt, it was through divided waters. When we come to Christ the spiritual math is not addition; it is division, meaning we are not adding Christ to our lives lived in self-direction, but we are dividing ourselves creating a separation between the world and the old life and coming out to Christ to be led by the pillar of cloud by day and the fire by night to a place of indwelling with God in the land of His promise.
