The Tabernacle Court

Just outside the tabernacle entrance was placed a water-filled laver, 30. 17-21; 38. 8. Of an undefined size, it was made of ‘the looking glasses of the women … which assembled at the door of the tabernacle’, 38. 8. Before entering the tabernacle, or approaching the brazen altar, the priests washed their hands and their feet in the laver (representing the cleansing effect of God’s word, John 17. 17). Similarly, Christians need daily cleansing through reading scripture, Eph. 5.26, which, like those looking glasses, shows its readers their true character, Jas. 1. 23, 24. 

The largest piece of tabernacle furniture, and the first to be met on entering the eastern gate, was a blood-spattered brazen altar.² Its acacia wood boards and four horns (to which the sacrifices were bound, Ps. 118. 27) were all covered with fire-resistant brass, Deut. 33. 25; Jer. 1. 18. Brass vessels, including pots, shovels, basins, fleshhooks, and firepans were made for its service. A brazen grate reached to its midpoint, enhancing oxygenation, and intensifying its divinely ignited, never-dying fire.³ Carrying staves were slotted into this grate’s four corner rings. As a most holy altar, which sanctified everything that touched it,⁴ the altar was atoned for by seven days of sacrifices, 29. 36, 37. Every sacrifice burned to Jehovah at the door of the tabernacle was offered on this altar, including daily morning and evening burnt offerings, 29. 38-46; Lev. 1. 3, 5. This altar and its sacrifices looked forward to Calvary and pictured Christ, through whom we offer spiritual sacrifices to God, and upon whom we feed our souls every day, Heb. 13. 10, 15, 16. As the fire of the brazen altar was generated by Jehovah and never extinguished, Christians feed the fire in their hearts by meditating on Christ. The prominence of the brazen altar teaches the importance of believers keeping the cross always before them.

On the first day of the second month, when everything was completed, Moses reared up the tabernacle, anointing every item with the holy oil and placing it correctly.⁵ The day climaxed when the cloud of God’s presence ‘covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle’, 40. 34. When that cloud, which guided Israel through ‘that great and terrible wilderness’, sheltered them from the heat of the sun and gave light at night, ‘was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys’, 40. 36.⁶ Once the priests had carefully wrapped the sanctuary furniture, the Kohathites carried it with the staves, Num. 4. 1-20. With the help of two carts, the Gershonites moved the tabernacle, its covers, the court hangings and its gate, vv. 21-28; 7. 7. Using four carts, the Merarites transported the tabernacle boards, bars and pillars, vv. 29-33; 7. 8. In this way Israel travelled through the wilderness to the Promised Land. As the Levites expended great energy in carrying the tabernacle through the wilderness, so it takes hard work to bear a testimony for Christ in this world.