Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Exodus, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
God’s Identity and Power
Redemption and Deliverance
The Covenant
Mediators and the Priesthood
Summary
Analysis
The Israelites should make an altar out of acacia wood. It should be square, and on its corners should be horns, overlaid with bronze. The altar should also have pots to receive the ashes, with various utensils of bronze, and bronze poles so that the altar may be carried.
This altar will later be described as the “altar of burnt offering.” Priests will offer sacrifices here on the people’s behalf, making it one of the most important locations for Israel’s religious practice. It’s located just outside the tabernacle.
Themes
The tabernacle should also have a court. The court should have twenty bronze pillars and bases and hangings of fine linen. The gate should have an embroidered screen of blue, purple, and crimson and fine linen. Finally, the Israelites should bring pure olive oil to fuel the lamps. In the tent of meeting, outside the curtain, Aaron and his sons must tend the lamp from evening to morning; it will be a “perpetual ordinance” observed by all generations.
The tabernacle’s outer area is called the court. It includes the altar of burnt offering. This area is elaborately decorated to match the colors and materials within, the overall scheme reminding people both inside and outside of the tabernacle’s holiness. This section ends with instructions regarding the lampstand in the holy place; like the tabernacle itself, its oil is to be supplied by the Israelites themselves.
Themes
