Exodus 27 — The Altar of Burnt Offering and the Court

The opening unit (vv. 1–8) prescribes the altar of burnt offering: a hollow acacia-wood structure, five cubits square and three high, overlaid with bronze, fitted with horns at the four corners, bronze vessels for ash and fire, a bronze grating halfway up, and carrying poles passed through rings on two sides. The closing formula — "as it hath been showed thee in the mount" (v. 8) — links this altar to the heavenly pattern revealed to Moses on Sinai, the same pattern mentioned in Exodus 25:9, 25:40, and Hebrews 8:5. The horns, projecting from one piece with the altar, become a point of asylum and refuge in later narratives (1 Kings 1:50–51; 2:28), suggesting that the altar itself was understood as a place of mercy attached to sacrifice.

The second unit (vv. 9–19) describes the court (ḥaṣer) that encloses the tabernacle. Fine-twined linen hangings, suspended on pillars with bronze sockets and silver hooks and fillets, form a rectangular enclosure one hundred by fifty cubits, five cubits high. The east-facing gate uses a richly colored embroidered screen of blue, purple, and scarlet — the same color scheme as the inner veil (Exodus 26:31–33). Within this courtyard, only the priests may approach; the Israelite worshipper must remain outside the linen boundary. The mixture of precious metals — silver for hooks, bronze for sockets and pegs — marks a hierarchy of materials that diminishes as one moves outward from the most holy place.

The final unit (vv. 20–21) issues the statute for the lamp: pure beaten olive oil fuels a lamp that burns continually in the tent of meeting, outside the veil before the testimony, tended by Aaron and his sons from evening to morning as "a statute for ever throughout their generations." The lamp is not left burning automatically; it requires priestly maintenance every evening and morning, establishing a daily rhythm of sanctuary service. The chapter's two material centers — bronze altar outside, golden lampstand inside — frame the worshipper's approach: sacrifice without, sustaining light within.

Exodus 27 sits within the larger Sinai instructions for the tabernacle that span Exodus 25–31. Chapters 25–26 describe the ark, table, lampstand, tabernacle structure, and the inner veil; chapter 27 then turns outward to the altar standing in the courtyard and the courtyard itself, before chapter 28 moves to the priestly garments. The cross-reference list includes Exodus 25:9 and 25:40, both of which ground chapter 27 in the command to build everything according to the pattern shown on the mountain. The note that the lamp is to burn "without the veil which is before the testimony" locates it precisely in the outer holy place, immediately in front of the veil that separates the most holy place where the ark stands.

The perpetual-statute language in verse 21 connects this chapter to a broader priestly pattern: Numbers 18:23 (Levites' perpetual service), Leviticus 16:34 (the everlasting Day of Atonement statute), Leviticus 24:1–4 (the lamp tended on the pure gold lampstand), and Exodus 30:8 (Aaron lighting lamps at even with perpetual incense). These references together show that Exodus 27's lamp statute is one strand in a web of "for ever" requirements that organize Levitical worship around the tabernacle. The mention in 1 Samuel 3:3 of the still-burning lamp of God in the temple at Shiloh, and 2 Chronicles 13:11's mention of evening and morning offerings, both echo the daily rhythm first set here.