Bible chapter guide

Exodus 27

The bronze altar of burnt offering, five cubits square with horns at its corners, and the courtyard around the tabernacle, a hundred cubits by fifty, hung with linen on bronze pillars, with a gate of coloured embroidered work. Pure olive oil keeps the lamp burning.

Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.

What happens in this chapter

The chapter moves out of the tent into the open court. First comes the altar of burnt offering: a hollow box of acacia planks five cubits square and three high, covered in bronze, with a horn at each corner, a bronze grating halfway up and poles for carrying. Around everything runs a fence of linen hangings five cubits high, a hundred cubits along the sides and fifty across the ends, hung from sixty pillars with bronze bases and silver hooks. The only way in is a twenty-cubit embroidered screen on the east. The chapter ends with an order for pure beaten olive oil, so that Aaron and his sons can keep the lamp burning from evening to morning.

What the lab shows, and where to look

In the Tabernacle lab, start at the Courtyard and then the Court Gate: the gate is the one break in the fence, in the middle of the east side as the text has it. Court Pillars shows the silver hooks and bands and the cords and bronze pegs; how the cords were rigged is the lab's guess. At the Bronze Altar, notice the ramp on its south side: no tabernacle verse mentions one, and the lab marks it plausible from Exodus 20:26. Priests at the bronze altar shows the altar in use, and Temples Side by Side sets this court next to the later temples.

Questions people ask

How big was the tabernacle courtyard?

A hundred cubits by fifty, with linen walls five cubits high (27:18). With a cubit of about 45 cm that is about 45 m by 22.5 m, with a fence a little over 2 m tall, higher than a man's head; the tent, ten cubits high, would have shown above it. The cubits are the text's; the metric figures depend on the length of the cubit.

Textually stated

Did the bronze altar have steps?

Exodus 27 does not say how a priest reached the top of an altar three cubits high. Exodus 20:26 forbids going up to an altar by steps, and the Second Temple altar had a ramp (Mishnah Middot 3:3), so the lab draws an earthen ramp on the south side. Some think the priests stood on the ground or on the ledge instead.

Plausible

What was the bronze grating for?

The text says a grating of bronze network sat under the ledge, reaching halfway up the altar, with the four carrying rings at its corners (27:4–5). It does not say whether it was inside the hollow box, holding the fire, or round the outside. Both views have supporters, and the lab marks its placement as plausible rather than certain.

Plausible

See it in the Labs

People in this chapter

Priests at the bronze altar

Places

Courtyard The inner court

Also in this chapter

Cubit Bronze Altar Court Gate Court Pillars, Pegs and Cords The priests' daily service The bronze altar The Tabernacle

How sure can we be?

Textually stated
The court measured 100 × 50 cubits with hangings 5 cubits high.
Stated directly in the text.
Textually stated
The gate screen was 20 cubits wide and 5 high on four pillars, facing east.
Stated directly in the text.
Textually stated
The altar was 5 × 5 cubits and 3 cubits high, with horns on its four corners.
Stated directly in the text.
Textually stated
The entrance faced east and the Most Holy Place lay at the west end.
The court's gate and the screen are on the east ('toward the sunrise'), the six boards on the west.
Textually stated
The court had 60 pillars with bronze sockets and silver hooks and bands.
Stated directly in the text (20 + 20 + 10 + 10).
Textually stated
Aaron and his sons kept the lamps in order from evening to morning, tending them each morning and lighting them each evening.
Stated directly in the text. Whether all seven lamps burned all day or only through the night is read both ways.

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King James Version (KJV) Chinese Union Version, 1919 (Wikisource)