Exodus 40:5-7

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

⁵You shall set the golden altar for the incense before the ark of the Testimony [outside the veil] and put the hanging or screen at the tabernacle door.

⁶You shall set the altar of the burnt offering before the door of the tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting.

⁷And you shall ^[a]set the laver between the Tent of Meeting and the altar and put water in it.

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Footnotes

Exodus 40:7 Why was it necessary for one exact position for the laver to be demanded of Moses by God? Those who have published charts of the tabernacle furniture arrangement, with the laver off to one side or the other of the door into the sanctuary, have missed a point here. The laver was to be placed directly “between [the doors of] the Tent of Meeting and the altar [of burnt offering],” thus completing the “cross” made by the arrangement of the furniture, from the ark to the altar. It could have no significance to the Jews of that time, but the One Who planned it had those in mind to whom Christ would one day say, “And these [very Scriptures] testify about Me!” (John 5:39.) How fitting that at the foot of that “cross” there should be the altar, picturing our complete surrender, and then the laver, picturing our cleansing, that we may enter in through Him Who alone is “the Door” to the eternal Holy of Holies (John 10:1-9).