The Altar for Sacrifices
27 You shall make the altar of acacia wood, seven and a half feet long and seven and a half feet wide. The altar shall be square, and it shall be four and a half feet high. 2 You shall make horns on its four corners. These horns are to be made as one piece with the altar, and you are to overlay the altar with bronze.
3 Make pails to take away its fat-drenched ashes. Make shovels, basins, meat hooks,[a] and fire pans for the altar. Make all its utensils of bronze.
4 Make a grate for it which is a latticework of bronze, and make four bronze rings for the four corners of the latticework grate. 5 Set the grate in place below the top edge of the altar, so that the grate rests halfway down from the top of the altar.[b]
6 Make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with bronze. 7 These poles are to be put through the rings on the two sides of the altar whenever it is carried. 8 You are to make the altar hollow, with sides made of boards. They are to make it as it is being shown to you on the mountain.
The Courtyard
9 You shall make the courtyard for the Dwelling.
For the south side of the courtyard there shall be hangings of fine woven linen, one hundred fifty feet long for that side. 10 There shall be twenty posts for it, and their twenty socket bases shall be bronze. The hooks for the posts and the connectors[c] shall be silver.
11 In the same way, for the north side there shall be hangings one hundred fifty feet long, with twenty posts and twenty bronze socket bases. The hooks for the posts and their connectors shall be silver.
12 For the courtyard on the west side there shall be hangings seventy-five feet wide, with ten posts and ten socket bases.
13 The width of the courtyard on the east side shall be seventy-five feet. 14 The hangings on one side of the entry gate shall be twenty-two feet six inches wide with three posts and three socket bases. 15 For the other side there shall be hangings twenty-two feet six inches wide with three posts and three socket bases.
16 For the entryway into the courtyard there shall be a screen thirty feet wide, made of blue, purple, and scarlet material and of fine woven linen, the work of an embroiderer. Make four posts for it and four socket bases. 17 All the posts around the courtyard shall be connected with silver.[d] Their hooks shall be silver, and their socket bases bronze. 18 The length of the courtyard shall be one hundred fifty feet, and the width seventy-five feet on both ends. The height of the hangings of fine woven linen shall be seven and a half feet. Its socket bases shall be bronze. 19 All the utensils for all the services of the Dwelling, all its tent stakes, and all the stakes for the courtyard shall be bronze.
Oil for the Lamps
20 You shall command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil from beaten olives[e] for the Light so that the lamp may burn every night.[f] 21 In the Tent of Meeting, in front of the veil which is in front of the Testimony, Aaron and his sons shall tend the lamp before the Lord from evening to morning. This shall be a permanent regulation throughout their generations for the people of Israel.
Footnotes
- Exodus 27:3 Or forks
- Exodus 27:5 The Hebrew of verses 4 and 5 is difficult, and interpretations of the placement of the grate vary.
- Exodus 27:10 It is not clear if this refers to bands connecting the hooks to the posts or to connecting rods between the posts.
- Exodus 27:17 See the note on verse 10.
- Exodus 27:20 The basic meaning of the Hebrew verb ktt is “beat.” The translation assumes that oil from beaten olives is the highest grade “extra virgin” olive oil from the first crushing of the olives, which was done by hand, not by a mechanical press.
- Exodus 27:20 The Hebrew word means continually. It seems, however, that the lamps burned from evening to morning. See the next verse and 30:8. So in this context continually means every night, not at all times.