Exodus 38

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:31:16utc

This chapter can be divided in three sections:

1. The furniture in courtyard vs. 1-8

2. The court itself vs. 9-20

3. The inventory of material used vs. 21-31

The Pulpit Commentary notes here: "Vers. 1-7 correspond to vers. 1-8 of ch. xxvii; ver. 8 corresponds to ver. 18 of ch. xxx.; and vers. 9-20 correspond to vers. 9-19 of ch. xxvii."

1. The furniture in courtyard vs. 1-8

The vs. 1-7 describe the making of the bronze burnt offering altar. This section corresponds word for word with the blueprint given in ch. 27:1-8, with the exception of the vs. 5 in both chapters. In ch. 38 the verse speaks about rings to be made and in ch. 27 about a ledge. The Hebrew words used are not identical (tabba` ath - for ring; and karkob for rim or margin), and we are obviously not dealing with the same detail here. The Good News Bible gives the measurements as "7 ½ feet long and 7 ½ feet wide, and it was 4 ½ feet high." The International Standard Bible Encylopaedia asserts here: "The more important material used is bronze, and the whole construction was as unlike that of the ordinary lay altar as possible." It seems that it is near to impossible to reconstruct this altar with the directions given in Scripture. Moses must have given oral information to the workers on the basis of what he saw on the top of Mount Sinai, which is not recorded for us.

The bronze washbasin, which is mention briefly in vs. 8 is described in ch. 30:18-21. No measurements are given here. It must have been a rather small basin, since water was a scarce commodity in the desert. Two interesting pieces of information given are that the basin was made from the mirrors of the women and that those were women who served at the entrance of the tent.

A lot can be said about human vanity. I don't think that women are necessarily more vain than men, but they pay generally more attention to their apparel. This, of course, is part of the way God made male and female, and as such it is not sinful for a woman to make herself attractive. Peter mentions the danger of covering an ugly soul with beautiful decorations. "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight."[ 1 ] Some of this penetrating truth must lie at the basis of the sacrifice these women made here of their mirrors. We are not told what kind of service these women performed at the entrance of the tent. Their brief mention here indicates that the religious service of the Israelites was not a purely male function. Women played an important part in it. Their sacrifice of that which was part of their very nature made it possible for the priests to serve the Lord without endangering their lives. After all it was said: "Whenever they enter the Tent of Meeting, they shall wash with water so that they will not die. Also, when they approach the altar to minister by presenting an offering made to the LORD by fire, they shall wash their hands and feet so that they will not die."[ 2 ]

2. The court itself vs. 9-20

Vs. 9-20 describe the making of the courtyard. This section corresponds to the instructions given in ch. 27:9-19. Some details , that must have been implied in the original instructions, are added here, like the tops being overlaid with silver (vs.17 and 19). The Good News Bible gives the measurements of the courtyard as 50 x 25 yards and the curtain at the entrance 10 yards long, leaving 7 ½ yards on either side of the entrance. TLB gives the same measurements in feet: 150 x 75 feet and 22 ½ feet for the drapes on either side of the entrance. The International Standard Bible Encylopaedia writes about the courtyard: "The attempt at reconstruction of the tabernacle begins naturally with the "court" (chatser) or outer enclosure in which the tabernacle stood … The description is given in <Exo 27:9-18; 38:9-20>. The court is to be conceived of as an enclosed space of 100 cubits (150 ft.) in length, and 50 cubits (75 ft.) in breadth, its sides formed (with special arrangement for the entrance) by "hangings" or curtains (qela`im) of 'fine twined linen,' 5 cubits (7 ½ ft.) in height, supported by pillars of brass (bronze) 5 cubits apart, to which the hangings were attached by "hooks" and "fillets" of silver. It thus consisted of two squares of 50 cubits each."

The Matthew's Henry Commentary draws a good and interesting spiritual lesson from this courtyard. We quote: "This represented the state of the Old Testament church: it was a garden enclosed; the worshippers were then confined to a little compass. But the enclosure being of curtains only intimated that the confinement of the church in one particular nation was not to be perpetual. The dispensation itself was a tabernacle-dispensation, movable and mutable, and in due time to be taken down and folded up, when the place of the tent should be enlarged and its cords lengthened, to make room for the Gentile world, as is foretold, <Isa. 54:2-3>. The church here on earth is but the court of God's house, and happy they that tread these courts and flourish in them; but through these courts we are passing to the holy place above. Blessed are those that dwell in that house of God: they will be still praising him. The enclosing of a court before the tabernacle teaches us a gradual approach to God. The priests that ministered must pass through the holy court, before they entered the holy house. Thus before solemn ordinances there ought to be the separated and enclosed court of a solemn preparation, in which we must wash our hands, and so draw near with a true heart."

Seen from the outside, the courtyard with the fence of white linen which reflected the sunlight, exemplified purity. It was an image of the holiness of God. It was understood that nothing impure ought to penetrate such an enclosure. David captures the feeling of the pilgrim who approaches the tabernacle with the words: "Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false."[ 3 ] And John's reaction to the revelation of the New Jerusalem says the same: "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood."[ 4 ]

Yet, the entrance to the court consisted of an inviting colorful gate, made of "blue, purple and scarlet yarn and finely twisted linen-- the work of an embroiderer." Contrary to existing misconceptions, holiness is colorful. White may seem dull and uneventful from a distance, but when we come closer we understand that, what looks to us as white only, is, in reality a combination of all the colors of the rainbow.

The paradox of the construction of the tabernacle is that in order to enter one had to be covered by the blood of the sacrifice that was on the altar inside the courtyard. Actually, the Israelites had been drawn into the covenant with God by the death of the Passover lamb. The sacrifices that were brought inside the courtyard were not for salvation, but for those who had been saved already and were in need of cleaning of their sins, subsequent to salvation. The sacrifices brought in the tabernacle were an Old Testament illustration of the truth the apostle John explains when he says: "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."[ 5 ] We should not see in the way the tabernacle was constructed a justification for Calvin's theology, which states that the benefits of Christ's death on the cross are limited to the elect alone. The Israelites were not saved by the sacrifices that were brought on the bronze altar, but they were kept holy by them.

3. The inventory of material used vs. 21-31

In this concluding section we are, first of all, informed of who the supervisor of logistics was: Ithamar, son of Aaron, directed the Levites for the purpose of keeping a record of all the material used. Vs. 22,23 repeat the names of the two main figures who were involved in the making of the tabernacle. Bezalel was the head man and Oholiab is mentioned particularly in connection with all the embroidery done on the curtains of the tent. But, as we have seen before, they were assisted by a group of people who were gifted artistically and who worked on the different parts of the tabernacle simultaneously under supervision of Bezalel and Oholiab.

The total amount of gold used in the making of the tabernacle is given as "29 talents and 730 shekels." The Adam Clarke Commentary gives a very detailed account of the value of the gold and silver mentioned here, and he calculates the worth in terms of the English currency of his time, which is the early nineteenth century. His elaborate study would give us the impression that the value of gold had hardly changed over the last thirty centuries. In our world where the exchanges in Wall Street fluctuate from moment to moment, his calculations tend to produce a smile on our faces; or maybe we feel a sort of jealousy about the fact that the world economy used to be that stable. It is very difficult to determine what the material used in the making of the tabernacle would be worth on our modern money market. The Good News Bible gives us an amount of gold of "2,195 pounds, weighed according to the official standard." But TLB speaks of 3,140 pounds. All this was collected by way of free will offerings the people had brought in.

The total amount of silver used was "100 talents and 1,775 shekels, " which the Good News Bible converts into 7,550 pounds and TLB into 9,575 pounds. This silver is not part of the freewill offering by which the other building materials of the tabernacle were obtained; it was the amount of half a shekel per person, gathered as a result of the census, described in ch. 30:12-16. What happened to the silver gathered in during the freewill offering, we do not know. The Pulpit Commentary says here: "No estimate is made of the weight of the silver freewill offering (ch. xxxv. 24), nor is any account given of their application. It has been suggested that they were returned to the donors as superfluous, which is certainly possible." At this point we learn that the nation of Israel consisted of 603,550 men twenty years old or older. Even if we allow for an equal number of women, which is probably too conservative an estimate and add the children, we come to a total population of over 2,000,000 people. The odds of such a mass of people surviving a desert crossing, and that for forty years, is a miracle of enormous proportions.

We could ask ourselves the question why the matter of the census comes up in the context of the building of the courtyard. We should remember that the silver here was a ransom for a person's life. This means that a man forfeited his life and this silver allowed him to live. As we saw already, in connection with our study of the subject in ch. 30, the ransom payment was a symbolic one. One doesn't pay for his soul with half a shekel. In Jesus' words: "What can a man give in exchange for his soul?"[ 6 ] But now the silver gathered as ransom money is used for the bases for the sanctuary and for the curtain and posts of the courtyard. The fence around the house of the Lord and the pillars of the sanctuary were a living testimony to the fact that the lives of the people of Israel had been paid for.

There is also a deep lesson in the fact that the payment made by the men, twenty years old and older, actually paid for the whole nation, young and old, male and female. The men who paid would be drafted into the army; they would defend and protect Israel against outside harm. Those whose lives were paid for also served in the army. There is no question of having a ransom paid for one's soul and not serving. Every Christian is "a Soldier of the Cross."

Finally, the bronze, which was part of the freewill offering, was used in the making of the furniture outside the tabernacle: the bases for the entrance, the altar, and its utensils. The washbasin, as we have seen was made of the mirrors of the women who served at the tabernacle. The weight of the bronze is given as 70 talents and 2,400 shekels. The Good News Bible converts this to 5,310 pounds. TLB gives the weight as 7,540 pounds. I don't know the reason for the consistent discrepancy between the two versions as far as figures is concerned. The Good News Bible seems to be closer to the calculation most Encyclopedia give. Mr. Kenneth Taylor, the translator if the Living Bible seems to follow the trend of the modern evangelist in inflating his numbers.[ 7 ]

The weight of the ladies' mirrors was probably not included in the weight mentioned here, since the washbasin is not mentioned either at this point.

The Pulpit Commentary gives as one of the homilies of this last section the following, practical analysis: "The enumeration of the metals used. This served a useful purpose - 1. As an account rendered to the people of what had been done with their gifts. 2. As gratifying a very laudable wish of the contributors to know how much the sum-total of their contributions amounted to. 3. As giving a just idea of the splendour and costliness of the building. 4. As a testimony to the liberality, willingness, and unstinting self-sacrifice of all classes in the congregation. 5. As specially indicating the destination of the atonement-money-- the making of the 'sockets' on which the tabernacle was reared (ver. 27). 6. As a lesson of exactitude in church finance. A church is not at liberty to deal in a slovenly manner with its receipts and disbursements. Careful accounts should be kept and published. This (1) gives confidence in the management; (2) is an encouragement to giving; (3) prevents charges of maladministration; (4) is a prevention against waste." Considering the fact that this comment was written about one century ago, it sounds rather up to date.

[ 1 ] I Pet. 3:3,4

[ 2 ] Ex. 30:20,21

[ 3 ] Ps. 24:3,4

[ 4 ] Rev. 21:27; 22:14,15

[ 5 ] I John 1:7-9

[ 6 ] Mark 8:36, 37

[ 7 ] I could not resist the joke!