Matthew Poole and continuators on Exodus 38

8 And he made the laver of brass, and the foot of it of brass, of the looking glasses of the women assembling, which assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation .

Which as now they are sometimes made of polished steel, so anticntly were made of polished brass, as appears both from sacred and from profane writers. See Iob 37. 18. Plin. 33. 9. &c.

It seems to note a company of religious women who in a more peculiar manner devoted themselves to the service of God in or about his Tabernacle, by fasting, prayer, &c. See 1 Sam. 2. 22. and Luk. 2. 37. And whereas some object, that the Tabernacle was not yet built, it may be replied, either that this is to be understood of the tabernacle, spoken of Exod. 33. 7. which might serve for that purpose till this was built, or that here is a prolepsis or anticipation, and that he speaks not of what the women now did, but of what they did after the Tabernacle was built, which was before Moses writ these words.

Marginal references: chap. 30. 18.; Or, brazen glasses.; Heb. assembling by [illegible: 1+ letters]oops. as 1 Sam. 2. 22.

10 Their pillars were twenty, and their brazen sockets twenty: the hooks of the pillars, and their sillets were of silver.

Upon which they hanged the beasts to be sacrificed, as the Iews affirm.

18 And the hanging for the gate of the court was needle-work, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen: and twenty cubits was the length, and the height in the breadth was five cubits answerable to the hangings of the court.

The height relates to its standing or hanging upright, and the breadth relates to the hanging it self, and the height of the hanging was taken in the breadth.

21 This is the sum of the tabernacle , even of the tabernacle of testimony, as it was counted, according to the commandment of Moses, for the service of the Levites , by the hand of Ithamar son to Aaron the priest.

This doth not belong to the following account of Gold and Silver, but to the foregoing particulars of holy things relating to the Tabernacle, for these onely were committed to the care of the Levites, as it here follows, but this Gold and Silver was put into other hands.

(i. e.) For those holy uses and services which the Levites administred.

24 All the gold that was occupied for the work, in all the work of the holy place, even the gold of the offering, was twenty and nine talents , and seven hundred and thirty shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary.

Every talent contained three thousand shekels See Gen. 23. 15. Exod. 30. 13. It is not said, that all this Gold and following Silver were used about the building of the Tabernacle, for the people brought much more than enough, Exod. 36. 5. And these remains, it is probable, were put into the sacred treasury to be used as occasion should require.