Exodus27chapter 27

The chapter gives the bronze altar, the court and the oil for the lamp. On the very first measurement Rashi reports a difference between two Rabbis and leaves it standing. Rabbi Jehudah takes the three cubits as written. Rabbi Jose argues from the word square, used here and of the golden altar at Exodus 30:2, that the height was ten (Rashi on Exodus 27:1:1). The horns are made of one piece with the altar rather than attached afterwards (Rashi on Exodus 27:2:1). The copper overlay he reads as a covering for a particular sin. It atones "to atone for sins committed with effrontery", which he ties to the copper forehead of Isaiah 48:4 (Rashi on Exodus 27:2:2, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Terumah 11). The hangings of the court he pictures from ordinary work, "made like the sails of ships, full of holes, of plaited work" (Rashi on Exodus 27:9:1). The columns stood five cubits apart, and he counts them corner by corner round the court (Rashi on Exodus 27:10:1 and 27:14:1). The east is called the front of the world and the west its back, which is why the sea to the west is the hinder sea (Rashi on Exodus 27:13:1). The clear oil is got by letting the olive ripen on the tree rather than by straining (Rashi on Exodus 27:20:1, citing Menachot 86a). The measure for the lamp comes from the longest nights. The Rabbis reckoned half a log of oil enough for the nights of Tebeth, and set the same measure for every night of the year (Rashi on Exodus 27:21:1, citing Menachot 89a). Rashi is quoted from the Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition of 1929 to 1934, public domain. Ibn Ezra comments at Exodus 27:1:1, 27:4:1, 27:5:1, 27:8:1 and 27:12:1 under a licence that keeps his text off this page. Malbim comments at Exodus 27:16:1 with no English version in the corpus.