Exodus 30:18 “Make a bronze bowl and put it on a bronze base. You will use this for washing. Put the bowl between the Meeting Tent and the altar. Fill the bowl with water.
19 Aaron and his sons must wash their hands and feet with the water from this bowl.
Exodus 38:8 He made the bowl and its base with bronze. He used the bronze mirrors that the women gave. These were the women who served at the entrance to the Meeting Tent.
The bronze laver was highly reflective and the still water inside would also be reflective. The priests could approach this laver and see themselves before cleansing with the water. This laver stood between the Bronze Altar and the Tent of Meeting (Tabernacle) in the Outer Court. No sinner was allowed into the Outer Court. You can only come through by the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But as a born again believer, you approach the laver for daily cleansing.
“This was to teach them purity in all their services, and to dread the pollution of sin. They must not only wash and be made clean, when first made priests, but must wash and be kept clean, whenever they went to minister. It teaches us daily to attend upon God, daily to renew our repentance for sin, and our looking to the blood of Christ for remission; for in many things we daily offend.” – Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
Mirrors then did not have glass. They were highly polished brass that showed a reflection. These the good women of Israel, in their great zeal, brought for the service of the sanctuary, though they were of daily use, and peculiarly serviceable to them in their dressing and was their renouncing the world.
The Bible doesn’t give measurements and descriptions of this laver so it is a little up to interpretation. It would have been highly reflective and the water still to be even more reflective. Some have it in two layers with a bottom to wash the feet and the top to wash the hands. BUT that would soil all the water in the laver leaving it dirty and unreflective, too hard to clean out. Personally I think it makes more sense that they dipped clean water out with dippers or pitchers and poured the water in bowls and used towels. This kept the water clean, the laver clean, and a more manageable process. All you had to do then was keep the laver full of clean water and wash the bowls and towels. This would mean the laver would have to be deeper in order to dip into the water.
“After the Jews ended their wandering in the desert, the tabernacle was replaced by the Temple in Jerusalem, built by King Solomon. The bronze laver in the temple was made by a bronze worker named Hiram of Tyre who also crafted the bronze pillars that stood at the entrance to the temple vestibule (1 Kings 7:13–14). The “Sea of cast metal” (1 Kings 7:23), so called because of its great size, took the place of the tabernacle’s laver, but its function was the same—the washing of the priests.
“This second laver was much larger than the one in the tabernacle: 15 feet in diameter at the top and about 47 feet in circumference, with a depth of 7.5 feet (1 Kings 7:23). The depth of the water in the bronze laver seems to indicate that the priests completely immersed themselves in it, rather than just washing their hands and feet. The brim of the laver was carved with flowers, and oxen were carved or cut on the outside all around. The laver stood on a pedestal of twelve bronze oxen, three facing each direction of the compass. The temple court also held ten bronze basins for washing the sacrifices (2 Chronicles 4:6), but the Sea, or the bronze laver, was only for the priests to wash in.
“When the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem in 605 BC, they “broke up the bronze pillars, the movable stands and the bronze Sea that were at the temple of the LORD and they carried all the bronze to Babylon” (Jeremiah 52:17). The bronze laver had to be rebuilt for Zerubbabel’s temple.
“There are no biblical descriptions of the bronze laver as part of Herod’s Temple, but historians believe the bronze laver rested on twelve bronze bulls and sat between the altar and the temple, as Moses had instructed. When the Romans sacked Jerusalem in AD 70, the temple was completely destroyed, and the furnishings, including the laver, were either stolen or destroyed.” – GotQuestions.org
The sinner is shut out until they accept Jesus Christ. Scripture has no word for a lost sinner but “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). No one in Israel or the rest of the world could wash from the laver. The work of cleansing is confined to believers. But first a sacrifice at the Bronze Altar, blood sacrifice. Then, before entering the Inner Court or Holy Place, the Tabernacle proper, the Priests had to go to the laver and see themselves and cleanse themselves. Blood and water; Blood speaks of a life taken and water speaks of life given. Within the door of the Holy Place were vessels that represented God Himself. No priest dare enter unclean. “Be holy as I am holy”. The hands speak of what they did, their service, their work, everything they put their hands to so their hands needed to be clean always, and daily. The feet represented where they went, their lives, walk and ways. Their walk had to be a holy walk, so their feet were washed always, and daily. We are continually being cleansed from the corruption of this world by the Word of God.
When the Jew, Nicodemus, came to Jesus to ask about the kingdom of God Jesus replied, “unless one is born of the water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Water brings life to the physical world and so spiritual water (the Word of God and the Holy Spirit) brings God’s spiritual life to us. When we daily read the Word of God (the reflective bronze laver) with the help of the Holy Spirit (the water), we are, as it were, staring in the highly polished mirror and seeing ourselves in our true condition. Then we repent and receive cleansing. Our hearts are changed to be more like Christ. We receive instruction and enabling power to obey, serve and live a holy life. This is sanctification. To wash in the Word of God is to apply the Word to your life. In the Lord’s prayer in John 17, Jesus prays for His own: “I pray for them [those whom the Father gave Him]: I pray not for the world” (John 17:9). Then He makes this request of the Father: “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth”.
Titus 3:3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,
5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Hebrews 10:19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,
20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,
21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
James 1:21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.
24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
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