Commentaria in Exodum
Chapter the Thirty-eighth. Synopsis of the Chapter
The altar of holocaust; and verse 8, the laver of brass made of the looking-glasses of the women; and verse 9, the court with its pillars and hangings; finally, verse 24, are numbered the talents of gold and silver and brass offered and spent on the making of the tabernacle.
1. He made also the altar of holocaust of setim wood, five cubits square, and three cubits high. 2. The horns whereof came out of the corners: and he overlaid it with plates of brass. 3. And for its uses he prepared divers vessels of brass, caldrons, tongs, fleshhooks, hooks, and firepans. 4. And the grate thereof he made like a net of brass, and under it in the midst of the altar a hearth, 5. Casting four rings at the four ends of the net, to put in the bars to carry it, 6. Which also themselves he made of setim wood, and overlaid them with plates of brass: 7. And he brought them into the rings that stood out in the sides of the altar. And the altar itself was not solid, but hollow of boards, and empty within. 8. He made also the laver of brass with its foot of the looking glasses of the women that watched at the door of the tabernacle. 9. And he made the court, in the south side of which were hangings of fine twisted linen of a hundred cubits, 10. With twenty pillars of brass with their sockets: the heads of the pillars, and all the engraving of them, of silver. 11. In like manner on the north side the hangings, pillars, sockets, and heads of the pillars, were of the same measure, work, and metal. 12. But on the west side were hangings of fifty cubits; ten pillars with their sockets of brass, and the heads of the pillars, and all the engraving, of silver. 13. Moreover toward the east he made hangings of fifty cubits, 14. Of which fifteen cubits, with three pillars and their sockets, held one side; 15. And on the other (because between both he made the entrance of the tabernacle) there were hangings of fifteen cubits equally, with three pillars and as many sockets. 16. All the hangings of the court were woven of fine twisted linen. 17. The sockets of the pillars were of brass: and their heads, with all their engravings, of silver: but the pillars of the court he overlaid with silver. 18. And in the entry thereof he made a hanging of embroidery of violet, and purple, scarlet, and fine twisted linen, which was twenty cubits in length, and the height five cubits, according to the measure which all the hangings of the court had. 19. And the pillars at the entrance were four with sockets of brass, and their heads and engravings of silver. 20. And the stakes of the tabernacle and of the court round about he made of brass. 21. These are the instruments of the tabernacle of the testimony, which were numbered according to the commandment of Moses in the ceremonies of the Levites by the hand of Ithamar the son of Aaron the priest; 22. Which Beseleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Juda, by the Lord’s command through Moses, accomplished,
23. Having for his companion Ooliab the son of Achisamech of the tribe of Dan: who also himself was a skilful artificer in wood, and an embroiderer and weaver of violet, purple, scarlet and fine linen. 24. All the gold that was spent in the work of the sanctuary, and that was offered in gifts, was twenty-nine talents, and seven hundred and thirty sicles, according to the standard of the sanctuary. 25. And it was offered by them that passed to the numbering, from twenty years old and upward, of six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty armed men. 26. And there were besides a hundred talents of silver, of which were cast the sockets of the sanctuary, and of the entrance, where the veil hangeth: 27. A hundred sockets were made of a hundred talents, a talent for every socket. 28. And of the thousand seven hundred seventy-five (sicles) he made the heads of the pillars, which he also overlaid with silver. 29. Of brass also were offered seventy-two thousand talents, and four hundred sicles over, 30. Of which were cast the sockets at the entrance of the tabernacle of the testimony, and the altar of brass with its grate, and all the vessels that belong to the use thereof: 31. And the sockets of the court as well round about as at the entry thereof, and the stakes of the tabernacle and of the court round about.
8. HE MADE ALSO THE LAVER OF BRASS WITH ITS FOOT OF THE LOOKING-GLASSES OF THE WOMEN.—“Of the looking-glasses,” in Hebrew bemarot, that is, in visions, or in mirrors, as if to say: He made the laver so polished and bright that it served as a mirror, in which the women and others coming to the tabernacle could look at themselves. So Cajetan. But the Hebrew prefix beth, that is, in, is often taken for min, that is, of, from. Whence others everywhere render, of the looking-glasses, which some first explain thus, not that the laver was made of mirrors, but that it had mirrors hanging round it, in which the priests might look at themselves and see whether they were spotted with stains. Others hold that the laver was made of mirrors, that is, of the brass coverings of mirrors. So Abulensis. But all these are idle; for the Septuagint render, of mirrors, and the Chaldee and others everywhere take marot for mirrors, and hold that of these this washing laver was properly made. Nor should it seem strange that these mirrors were made of brass: for Pliny, book 33, chap. 9, and book 34, chap. 17, teaches that formerly the best mirrors were the Brundusian, of tin and brass, most carefully burnished and polished, though afterwards silver ones were preferred. Some probably hold that these mirrors did not make up the whole laver, but were skilfully inserted into it round about, and as it were inwoven, which seems easily enough neat and elegant, provided we grant that the laver consisted of these mirrors, and that they were not merely hung on it or attached to it: for in like manner golden chalices are inwoven with diamonds and other gems of great price, ornament and elegance; of these it can truly be said that they are made of or consist of diamonds, though for the greater part they consist of gold.
“It was the custom of the Egyptians, especially of the women, if they went to the temples, to be adorned with a linen robe, and religiously decked with a mirror in the left hand and a sistrum in the right; those who were the choicest of all, and initiated in the sacred rites, scarcely obtained this honour.” From this place Clericus concludes that such a custom was received by the Hebrew women from the Egyptian women. But wrongly. First, the use of mirrors is found not among the Egyptians only, but also among the ancient Indians and Greeks: see Creuzer’s Symbolik, vol. 3, p. 497. Then what has this use to do with the private brass mirrors of women, when of their own accord, or admonished by Moses, they piously and liberally contribute them to the making of the brass laver? So Bähr, Symbolik des Mosaischen Cultus, vol. 1, p. 496.
Note here the ancient devotion and rite, by which holy women, especially when they dedicated themselves wholly to the service of God, consecrated to God their mirrors and ornaments, which had before served vanity and the world. Sophia, mother-in-law, and Constantina, wife of the Emperor Maurice, offered a crown in the church of God.
So St. Ludgardis, a matron most holy as well as most chaste, besides her patrimony offered to the church the whole womanly world of ornaments, which she possessed in rich abundance, that divine worship might thence be promoted.
So Pulcheria, daughter of Arcadius, built from her patrimony a noble temple to the Virgin Mother of God, in which she took care that the vestments of the Blessed Virgin should be kept with most magnificent worship, and adorned them with gems, necklaces, and even with her own garments; and so she devoted both her own things and herself and her virginity to the Blessed Virgin, and led a religious life in the court, with her sisters the queens, and with her brother the Emperor Theodosius, and afterwards with Marcian her husband the Emperor, her virginity ever unharmed; and thence she administered the empire under both most piously and most happily, a woman leader of so great an act: Cedrenus and others are witnesses.
Of Paula the Roman St. Jerome writes in her epitaph that, as soon as she had dedicated herself to God, she changed all her ornaments, and indeed the whole womanly world, into sacred furniture.
The same did St. Elizabeth, daughter of Andrew king of Hungary, and wife of the Landgrave of Thuringia, a matron of wonderful sanctity, mother and handmaid of the poor, as may be seen in her Life.