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Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain Exodus 40:32:
Exodus 40:30-32
Excerpted from: Approaching God Through Christ (Part 3)Now it is not clear how the priests washed. That is something that we really do not have. We have understanding how they may have done it in the second temple period, but we do not know exactly how they did it with this laver way back in 1400 BC and the tabernacle. They had to wash their hands and feet in water from the laver, rather than in the laver.
They did not just go up there, and stick their hands in the top, and take some water, or put a foot up, or anything like that. There were no steps leading up to it so that they could dangle them over the side. Obviously there must have been a way that they got water out of the laver to wash their hands and feet with.
It is likely that there was a big ceremony for them to do. You know how the Jews tend to be. It does not tell us here, but there may have been prayers said as they did this, there may have been a certain way that they needed to wash, such as right hand first, then left, and so on. It is hard to know. We just do not know all the ritual of how it was done that they may have had. There were probably, if there were not taps or spigots, ladles or pitchers that they had to use to draw water from the top, and then pour it over hands and feet, and maybe caught in the lower basin, or if that was not the case, if it was literally just a pedestal, then they had to have other basins that needed to be used to catch the refuse water.
It could have been as simple as opening the tap and putting their hands under the water to wash their hands and feet. Again, we do not know.
The Hebrew text suggests that the water poured over their hands and feet. There is no indication of rubbing or scrubbing. They were probably already clean before they started, so they maybe only needed to have the water poured over them to do the ritual and prepare them for the next thing.
I really do not think that they were in there with soap, scrubbing their hands and feet at the tabernacle. They would not have come there needing a bath. They would have already been clean before arriving. But, they had this ritual to go through using this water from the laver in the tabernacle to become clean ceremonially.
Regardless, it was a capital crime for the priest not to wash before entering the sanctuary, or for offering a sacrifice on the altar. There was a pretty stiff penalty. It was equal to using common fire on the altar of sacrifice or altar of incense. We know that from Nadab and Abihu's story in Leviticus 10 where they did use common fire. So, the same sort of thing would have happened if they did not wash from the laver first.
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