Exodus 38:8

The Bronze Laver (Exodus 30:18-21). V.8a as Exodus 30:18 a; v.8b is new. Exodus 30:18 is not repeated here (see Exodus 40:30-32).

8b. the serving women which served The expression is peculiar, the word used (צבא) being (both times) not the ordinary Heb. for -serve," but the word which means properly and regularly to serve in a host, to waror fight. The same word is used by P of the service of the Levites in (particularly) the transport of the Tabernacle and its appurtenances (Numbers 4:1-33), Numbers 4:23 (RVm.) -Heb. to war the warfare"; cf. the cognate subst. warfare(EVV. -service"), vv.3 (see RVm.), 35, 39, 43, Exodus 8:24-25 (see RVm.). Either, it seems, the Levites in Nu., and the women here, are pictured as performing their duties in organized bands, like soldiers in an army (cf. Ges. Thes., Di.), or (Gray, Numbers, pp. 32, 36) the word is one of those which in postexilic times, when the nation had become a church, acquired a religious connotation. The women were no doubt thought of as washing, cleaning, repairing, &c. Women -doing "warfare" at the entrance to the tent of meeting" are also mentioned in 1 Samuel 2:22 b: but the passage is not expressed in the LXX., besides differing in representation from the context (the sanctuary a -tent," not a hêkâl, or -temple"); and is beyond question a late gloss. LXX. render νηστεύσασαι, -fasting," either paraphrasing, or misreading צבאת as צמות (-fasting"). Onk. has who prayed. For other haggadic interpretations, see reff. in DI. The clause (8 b) must (Di. al.) be a later addition to the original narrative; for it obviously presupposes the erectionof the Tent of Meeting, which is not narrated till ch. 40.

The metal mirrors are to be thought of as the terûmâh, or -contribution," of the women; and the laver and its base, cast from them, as a -memorial" of the gift. Comp. the explanation of the metal casing of the altar in Numbers 16:37-40.