Exodus 11:1-8

The Court of the Tent of Meeting.

From Hastings" Dict. of the Bible, iv. 657.

longer sides are of 100 cubits, each with 20 pillars, the two shorter sides are of 50 cubits each, with 10 pillars; and there are 60 pillars in all. If now there are 10 pillars on the E. side, the distance between each will be 50/9 cubits, and the two sides of the entrance, 15 cubits from each corner, will not coincide with two of the pillars: as, moreover, the four corner pillars must now be counted twice, there will in all be not 60, but only 56 pillars. The writer must thus, for the sake of symmetry, have reckoned the sides as having respectively 20 and 10 pillars each, when in reality they would have 21 and 11. -The S. side, reckoning from E. to W., has pillars nos. 1 21, of which no. 21, however, is reckoned as belonging to the W. side; the W. side has nos. 21 31 (i.e. 11), no. 31 being reckoned to the N. side; the N. side has nos. 31 51 (i.e. 21), no. 51 being reckoned to the E. side; the E. side has for the N. side of the entrance nos. 51 54, no. 54 being reckoned to the entrance: the entrance has nos. 54 58, no. 58 being reckoned to the S. side of the entrance; the S. side of the entrance has nos. 58 61, no. 61 being the same as no. 1 of the S. side" (Di.; similarly Kennedy).

20 21 (no parallel in 35 40). A lightto be kept burning in the sanctuary every night. Oil is to be provided at the cost of the people; and the priests are to arrange the lamps on the candlestick every evening. These regulations seem out of place here; and in the mention of Aaron and his sons anticipate chaps. 28 29. They recur, with slight verbal differences, in Leviticus 24:2-3, where they are followed by directions respecting a kindred subject, viz. the Presence-bread (vv.5 9). Probably (so Di.) they were introduced here by a later editor from Exodus 24:1; Exodus 24:1-4. Comp. Numbers 8:1-2.