Exodus 27:9-19

THE COURT OF THE TABERNACLE

"And thou shalt make the court of the tabernacle: for the south side southward there shall be hangings for the court of fine twined linen a hundred cubits long for one side: and the pillars thereof shall be twenty, and their sockets twenty, of brass; the hooks of the pillars, and their fillets, of silver. And likewise for the north side in length there shall be hangings a hundred cubits long, and the pillars thereof twenty, and their sockets twenty, of brass; the hooks of the pillars, and their fillets, of silver. And for the breadth of the court on the west side shall be hangings of fifty cubit their pillars ten, and their sockets ten. And the breadth of the court on the east side eastward shall be fifty cubits. The hangings for the one side of the gate shall be fifteen cubits; their pillars three, and their sockets three. And for the other side shall be hangings of fifteen cubits; their pillars three, and their sockets three. And for the gate of the court shall be a screen of twenty cubits, of blue, of purple, and of scarlet, and fine twined linen, the work of the embroiderer; their pillars four, and their sockets four. All the pillars of the court round about shall be fillets with silver; their hooks of brass, and their sockets of brass. The length of the court shall be a hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty every where, and the height five cubits of fine twined linen, and their sockets of brass. All the instruments of the tabernacle in all the services thereof, and all the pins of the court, shall be of brass."

This paragraph of instructions is clear enough for anyone who will take the trouble carefully to note what it says. It is a measure of how desperate the cause of destructive criticism actually is that the enemies of the Bible should have attempted to use this paragraph at all. There is allegedly a problem relative to the placement of the 60 pillars enclosing the 50 cubits 10:100 cubits of the court. Even Philo thought these instructions were incorrect and proposed to solve the "problem" by reducing God's number of 60 pillars to 56, and then counting all four of the corners twice![7] It is amazing that simple solutions sometimes cannot be understood by men who are accounted to be among the wisest on earth. Rylaarsdam, one of the authors of The Interpreter's Bible commented on this alleged problem thus:

"It is impossible to reconcile the demands (of this passage) with the complete symmetry at which the writer obviously aims. Even Kennedy's clever interpretation fails because it results in putting the screen out of center in the east end. It seems clear that we are here face to face with the sort of inadvertent slip typical of an amateur, which, however obvious, often escapes discovery until one is confronted by the impasse it implies. It reminds us that this plan, produced in the study, was never actually implemented."[8]

The following diagram, known for centuries, shows exactly how these instructions were implemented:

The only possible objection to this arrangement is the mention of "their pillars four, and their sockets four" for the gate of the court in Exodus 27:16. The same passage, however states emphatically that the gate shall be composed of "twenty cubits," that is, four panels of five cubits each. Now, what about the "four pillars'? This number is actual, because the two external panels can receive credit for only one-half of each of the external pillars (4, and 8 in the diagram). As a matter of fact, if one takes the whole length of the surrounding "wall," having exactly sixty panels and sixty pillars, every single panel in the whole arrangement is supported by one half a pillar on each side of it. Therefore, if one should take any four panels in the whole sixty cubits of the enclosing "fence," those four panels would be supported by three whole pillars in the center and an additional one-half of the two on the outside of the four chosen, making exactly four panels and four pillars; but due to the arrangement, the four panels would touch five pillars. This is exactly the way it is in the diagram. The diagram here is an adaptation of the one offered by F. C. Cook in 1879![9]

We shall therefore leave it up to the unbiased student as to whether God or Rylaarsdam was the "amateur" mentioned in his comment.

For some who still fancy to find something wrong here, the mention of "twenty cubits" (four panels of 5 cubits each) as the size of the entrance should clear up everything. Since there can be only one panel per pillar for the whole 60 panels and 60 pillars, the fact of four panels actually touching five pillars should be no problem. It is a fact that every panel in the whole arrangement touches two pillars; and the only way for properly counting panels (without resorting to the calculation of two half-pillars for each panel) would necessarily be that of counting only the single pillar on one side or the other, the right or the left, depending on whether one began with a pillar or a panel.

Now look at the "Entrance" in the diagram. Does it have "four pillars" as the divine instructions required? Or are there five pillars? Look at the count. Since, on that east end, we began counting with a pillar, the panel in front of it (to the northward) belongs to pillar one, etc. This leaves exactly four pillars credited to the Entrance as the holy text required, the same being 4,5, 6, and 7. No. 8 cannot be included, because it also belongs to the panel in front of it (northward). This arrangement also leaves exactly three pillars on each side of the entrance as required by Exodus 27:14, the three pillars on the south of the entrance being 1,2, and 3, and those on the north side of it being 8,9, and 10, as reckoned with their respective panels, of course!

It may appear to some that we have devoted more than the required space for this exegesis; but the widespread ignorance of the critical community regarding the truth revealed here, and their willingness to make the most ridiculous and preposterous allegations based upon their ignorance provide sufficient reason for looking into the alleged "problem" carefully.