Laver

The laver is the bronze washing-vessel of the wilderness sanctuary and, in expanded form, of Solomon's temple. It stands between the tent of meeting and the altar, holds water for priestly washing, is anointed and sanctified along with the altar, and in the temple is multiplied into a great molten sea and ten wheeled basins. Its history runs from cast bronze in Exodus to broken bronze carried to Babylon, with a final figurative echo as a sea of glass before the throne in Revelation.

Directions for the basin

The instructions for the laver come as a single command in the tabernacle plans. The vessel and its base are to be cast of bronze, set in the courtyard between two fixed points, and filled: "You will also make a basin of bronze, and its base of bronze, whereat to wash. And you will put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you will put water in it" (Ex 30:18). The function follows immediately. Aaron and his sons "will wash their hands and their feet from it" (Ex 30:19), and the requirement is enforced under threat of death — "when they go into the tent of meeting, they will wash with water, that they will not die; or when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to Yahweh" (Ex 30:20).

The siting between altar and tent is repeated when Moses receives the assembly orders: "And you will set the basin between the tent of meeting and the altar, and will put water in it" (Ex 40:7). The placement is part of the sanctuary's geography — the basin marks the space where a priest, having come from the altar of burnt-offering, washes before entering the holy place.

Cast from the women's mirrors

The making of the basin is recorded distinctly from its commissioning. The metal is not unworked stock: "And he made the basin of bronze, and its base of bronze, of the mirrors of the serving women who served at the door of the tent of meeting" (Ex 38:8). The vessel that holds water for priestly washing is itself cast out of mirrors donated by the women stationed at the sanctuary entrance.

Anointed and sanctified

The basin is included in the consecration sequence with the altar and its vessels. Yahweh's anointing-oil instructions name it explicitly — "and the altar of burnt-offering with all its vessels, and the basin and its base" (Ex 30:28) — and the standalone command repeats: "And you will anoint the basin and its base, and sanctify it" (Ex 40:11). The enactment in Leviticus carries it out: "And he sprinkled of it on the altar seven times, and anointed the altar and all its vessels, and the basin and its base, to sanctify them" (Lev 8:11). The vessel that washes the priests is itself ritually set apart by anointing.

Used for washing

The first use is reported in the closing narrative of Exodus. Moses sets the basin in its appointed place, fills it, and the priests wash from it for the first time: "And he set the basin between the tent of meeting and the altar, and put water in it, with which to wash. And Moses and Aaron and his sons washed their hands and their feet from it; when they went into the tent of meeting, and when they came near to the altar, they washed; as Yahweh commanded Moses" (Ex 40:30-32). The pattern previously commanded — wash before the tent, wash before the altar — becomes practice.

The molten sea and ten wheeled basins

Solomon's temple expands the single tabernacle basin into a much larger installation. The central piece is the molten sea: "And he made the molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in a circle, and its height was five cubits; and a line of thirty cubits encircled it round about" (1Ki 7:23). Its construction is detailed — knops cast in two rows under the brim (1Ki 7:24), a stand of "twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east" with the sea set on them (1Ki 7:25), a brim "wrought like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily" and a capacity of "two thousand baths" (1Ki 7:26).

Alongside the sea, ten smaller basins are made, each on a wheeled bronze base. The bases themselves are described at length — four cubits square, three cubits high, paneled with "lions, oxen, and cherubim" and engraved further with "cherubim, lions, and palm-trees" (1Ki 7:29, 36) — and each has "four bronze wheels, and axles of bronze" with undersetters cast beneath the basin (1Ki 7:30). Onto each base goes a basin: "And he made ten basins of bronze: one basin contained forty baths; and every basin was four cubits; and on every one of the ten bases one basin" (1Ki 7:38). The five bases stand on each side of the house, with the sea placed on the right side eastward (1Ki 7:39).

Hiram's summary inventory groups them all together — "the ten bases, and the ten basins on the bases; and the one sea, and the twelve oxen under the sea; and the pots, and the shovels, and the basins" — all "of burnished bronze" (1Ki 7:43-45). The single tabernacle laver has become a sea, ten wheeled basins, and a working set of ancillary vessels.

Altered by Ahaz

The temple installation does not stay intact. Under Ahaz the wheeled bases are mutilated and the sea taken down from its oxen: "And King Ahaz cut off the panels of the bases, and removed the basin from off them, and took down the sea from off the bronze oxen that were under it, and put it on a pavement of stone" (2Ki 16:17). The basins are removed from their bases, the sea from its bulls — the laver-installation as Solomon designed it is dismantled.

Broken and carried to Babylon

What Ahaz altered, the Chaldeans break apart entirely. The sea, the bases, and the bronze pillars meet a single fate: "And the pillars of bronze that were in the house of Yahweh, and the bases and the bronze sea that were in the house of Yahweh, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried the bronze of them to Babylon" (2Ki 25:13). The roster confirms what has been lost — "The two pillars, the one sea, and the bases, which Solomon had made for the house of Yahweh, the bronze of all these vessels was without weight" (2Ki 25:16).

Jeremiah's parallel narrative records the same event with the same vocabulary. "And the pillars of bronze that were in the house of Yahweh, and the bases and the bronze sea that were in the house of Yahweh, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried all the bronze of them to Babylon" (Jer 52:17). The complete inventory is then named: "The two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve bronze bulls that were under the bases, which King Solomon had made for the house of Yahweh--the bronze of all these vessels was without weight" (Jer 52:20). The bronze that was once cast for washing and standing before the altar of Yahweh is now metal scrap on its way to Babylon.

A sea before the throne

The laver-vessel reappears in figurative form in Revelation. Before the throne of God John sees a sea, no longer of bronze but of glass: "and before the throne, as it were a sea of glass like crystal; and among the throne, and around the throne, four living creatures full of eyes before and behind" (Rev 4:6). Later the image returns, this time with the redeemed standing on it: "And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire; and those who come off victorious from the beast, and from his image, and from the number of his name, standing by the sea of glass, having harps of God" (Rev 15:2). The bronze sea of Solomon's house, hammered to pieces by the Chaldeans, has its visionary counterpart in a crystal sea before the throne — and those who have overcome the beast stand beside it.