NOTES for Exo 27:1-21
The building of the tabernacle and the arrangement of the courtyard around it are completed with the lighting of the lamp. This lamp, burning around the clock, is perhaps one of the most revealing acts of faith. A people with no settled home, walking through the desert, lights a lamp and sets apart special people so that the light will burn constantly. The impracticality of such actions is obvious: it is impossible to protect the fire from the wind and oneself from a fire. Yet this light is a necessary sign that faith is alive. Each person brings a little oil to keep the flame burning, and no one complains that healthy men, instead of doing urgent and necessary work, are occupied with preserving this fire. Because it is an eternal sign confirming the existence of the eternal Covenant between God and His people.