Exodus 27:20

These two verses belong to the long instructions for the tabernacle and its furnishings. They come just after the altar of burnt offering and the court (Exodus 27) and just before the garments of the priests and their consecration in Exodus 28, and with Aaron and his sons named in verse 21 they lead naturally into those chapters. The lampstand itself was already described in Exodus 25:31–40. Here the subject moves from making the lamp to keeping it lit, a duty that would go on as long as the tabernacle stood.

The same command is given again, more fully, in Leviticus 24:1–4, and Numbers 8:1–4 tells of the lighting of the lamps. The same chapter of Leviticus goes on to the showbread (Leviticus 24:5), another standing duty of the priests before the LORD.

The LORD asks Israel for “pure oil olive beaten for the light”. Olive oil was part of everyday life in Israel, and for the lamp in his house God asks for the finest grade of it. The word for pure, zak, means clear, clean and pure. Said of oil, it means oil free of sediment and of anything mixed into it. The word for beaten, kâthîyth, tells how the oil was made. The olives were pounded or crushed in a mortar, and this first pressing gave the clearest and best oil there was.

There was a practical reason for this. Clear oil burns brightly, cleanly and steadily, without smoke or residue to foul the holy place, so the lamp gave a good light all night.

There was also a lesson in it. The oil was holy fuel for a holy place, and its purity fit the holiness of the God before whom it burned. God asked for the best of Israel’s produce, the oil made with the most care, and he still deserves our first and finest. That is true of what we give him in money, and it is just as true of our time, our abilities and our love.

The word “always” is tâmîyd, which means continually, regularly or constantly, of something that goes on without a break or is repeated without fail. Verse 21 says when the lamp was tended, “from evening to morning”, and Leviticus 24:3 says the same. So the lamp burned through the night, every night, and each dark hour had its light in God’s house.

The lamp was a sign of God’s presence among his people. Night after night it told Israel that the LORD who dwelt in their camp was present and watchful, and that his light and guidance held even in the deepest dark. It also spoke of the covenant. The light burned on from year to year as the covenant stood, and it called for steady, diligent service from the priests who tended it and from the people who supplied it.

The nations around Israel also kept fires or lamps burning in the temples of their gods. Israel’s lamp was one pure light, kept by priests whom God himself had appointed, before the one holy God who is always present with his people.

“The tabernacle of the congregation” is in Hebrew ʼôhel môwʻêd, literally the tent of meeting. It was the place God appointed for meeting with his people, and so the light burned at the centre of Israel’s worship. Inside the tent a veil divided the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place, where the ark held “the testimony”, the tablets of the law. The lamp stood “without the vail”, outside it in the Holy Place. It burned close to the ark, where God’s covenant presence was and where his written word was kept.

The light was “before the LORD”. The priests’ work at the lamp was worship, done in his sight and for his pleasure.

The command goes through Moses, God’s chosen mediator, to “the children of Israel”. The whole congregation was to bring the oil, so keeping the light in God’s house was a duty every member of the covenant people shared.

The priests had their own part. “Aaron and his sons”, the line God set apart for his service, were to “order” the lamp. The verb ʻârak means to set in a row, to arrange or put in order, and also to prepare. Of the lamp it means the regular work of tending it, trimming the wicks and keeping it supplied with oil so that it burned well. It was careful, attentive work.

All of this was done “on the behalf of the children of Israel”. The priests tended the lamp as representatives of the whole nation, standing between a holy God and the people who came to him through them. The lamp was the people’s offering and the priests’ service together, and it burned for all Israel.

It made the tending of the lamp a standing duty for Aaron’s line in every generation of Israel under the old covenant. The words are chuqqâh ʻôwlâm. A chuqqâh is something prescribed, an enactment or statute, and ʻôwlâm speaks of time out of mind, a long and lasting time, for ever. Together they mark the lamp as part of the settled pattern of Israel’s worship, handed on from one generation to the next.

The tabernacle and its rites have passed, and the truths they taught remain. God still wills to dwell with his people, his truth still gives light, and he still asks for faithful and steady service. The statute finds its fulfillment in Christ, the light of the world, and in the Holy Spirit, who now dwells in every believer, for “your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

The lamp in the Holy Place points ahead to Jesus. Scripture already used the picture of a lamp for God’s word: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). Jesus said, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). John calls him “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9), and writes that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). The lamp burned in God’s tent among his people, and in Christ God himself came to be with us, as his name Emmanuel means, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23).

The purity of the oil points to the purity of his sacrifice, for Christ “through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God” (Hebrews 9:14). Aaron and his sons tended the lamp night after night, from one generation to the next. Our great High Priest made one offering, and “by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). His intercession for us is eternal and unceasing, because “he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). The statute for Israel’s generations gives way to the new covenant made in his blood, which Scripture calls “the everlasting covenant” (Hebrews 13:20).

Oil is often a picture of the Holy Spirit in Scripture. In Zechariah’s vision of the lampstand, the word that came with it was, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 4:2–6). Christ’s work in the world and through his church goes on in the Spirit’s power, and so his people carry his light. Jesus told his followers, “Ye are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14), and went on, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14–16).

Israel’s lamp needed both the people’s oil and the priests’ care, every evening, for generations. The life of faith is kept in much the same way. God is worthy of our best, our first and finest effort, and what we bring him day by day matters as the oil mattered. Faith is tended daily too, in prayer, in reading God’s word, in worship and in fellowship with his people. The light we carry is the Spirit’s work in us, so we shine by his power and his continual presence.

The lamp burned on behalf of all Israel, and our faithfulness also reaches beyond ourselves. Each believer’s devotion strengthens the witness of the whole church, and together we hold up the light of Christ in a dark world until he returns.