Leviticus 24:1-4--The Lamps

Leviticus 24:1-4
English Standard Version
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The Lamps
24 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil from beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning regularly. 3 Outside the veil of the testimony, in the tent of meeting, Aaron shall arrange it from evening to morning before the Lord regularly. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. 4 He shall arrange the lamps on the lampstand of pure gold before the Lord regularly.

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A very short passage for today, but an important one to understand as we know the "interpretation" of what the Golden Lampstand represents because of John seeing this and Jesus alluding to it in the book of Revelation 1:12-20 (I'll just link there and let you read it).

The oil that was to be brought by the people represents the Holy Spirit who often is pictured as oil in the Old Testament--both anointing oil and oil for the lamps here.  Without the Holy Spirit, the true Israel and the Church have no power, no fuel source.  If you're familiar with the children's song "Give Me Oil In My Lamp," it's referring to this passage here.  The lamps were always to be kept burning and the wicks trimmed so that the light would never go out as a symbol that the ministry of Israel and the Church to be the "light of the world" with a little 'l' is never finished and is ongoing day and night, day after day.  Note that the olive oil that was used here had to be pure, which goes back to that idea of holiness that we've been talking about throughout the entire book of Leviticus.  There could be no imperfection, and this was a special kind of oil for a special kind of lamp for a special kind of purpose in a special place.  There was nothing ordinary about this, it was holy and set apart and unique.

However, this light was hidden in a sense that it was in the Holy Place where only the priests could go, and it was masked by the cloud of burning incense so that the lampstand gave light to the room, but yet its full glory was not seen.  The high priest was supposed to tend to the lamps "from evening to morning" (all day long).

Directly across from the Golden Lampstand is the Table of Showbread (we'll talk about that tomorrow) and directly in front of the veil is the Golden Altar of Incense where the incense was offered representing the prayers of the people of Israel and the Church as the high priest made intercession there to ask for forgiveness of the sins of the people and atonement was made then as it is now--by way of the blood of a substitutionary atonement and by confession and faith that God will accept the sacrifice and will not reckon (count) our sins against us but will forgive them and somehow credit us with righteousness--that's the part that was missing for the people of that time, but we now know that we are declared righteous because of the righteousness of Christ, the Righteous One, our Great High Priest.