the-word-as-lamp

The Courtyard

Exodus Exodus 27:9-21

The bronze altar stood just inside the gate; now Exodus steps back to the wall that frames it. The chatzer is a bounded zone of access, and three things make it the structural statement of how a sinner draws near. There is exactly one gate — a single twenty-cubit screen on the east face, the rest blank white wall — and the canon treats east as the axis of guarded and restored approach, from the cherubim of Eden to Ezekiel's sealed gate. The perimeter is all-white fine twined linen, hung on bronze-based pillars whose silver hooks and fillets were forged from the census ransom money, the price paid for every Israelite life. And inside burns the perpetual lamp, fed by the purest beaten olive oil, kept alight every night 'outside the veil' — because the day had not yet dawned.