The more you look at the design of the Tabernacle (and eventually, the Temple), the more you notice a progressive development from start to finish. A person walks through the gate to drop off the sacrifice, then the priest walks into the holy place, and then eventually, the holy of holies. The farther into the Tabernacle you go, the closer you get to God.
Although the Tabernacle itself is reserved for only the priesthood, the courtyard is open to every Israelite—indeed, every Israelite should head there often to offer sacrifices and maintain ritual purity.
God designed the courtyard so that there was plenty of space for all the necessary activities for sanctification. According to Exodus 27:9-15, the courtyard was 50 cubits wide by 100 cubits long, or 75’x150’.
To put that in comparison to our times, the courtyard for the Tabernacle would be roughly the same size as one and a half basketball courts, or a standard olympic size swimming pool.
Contrary to the Tabernacle itself, which is mostly made of gold, the sockets of the courtyard fence were bronze and the hooks of the pillars and the bands were silver. As mentioned in the previous section of Exodus 27, the enormous sacrificial altar was also bronze.
Why did the priests need all this space? The easy answer is mentioned above: The priests needed lots of real estate to take care of the spiritual needs of hundreds of thousands of people.
Another argument could be made for privacy. The design of the tabernacle was such that it only had one gate, which meant you couldn’t just wander into the sacrificial area and see what was happening. There’s a distinction between the activities inside and the activities outside.
A third argument could be made for devotion. The walls of the tabernacle courtyard were 7.5 feet tall (five cubits). Since the average height of a Jewish male was closer to five feet at the time, that meant very few people could look in, and very few people could look out. When you’re inside the Tabernacle, the only activity you needed to be concerned with was worshipping God.
If I could throw one more thought alongside those, I think you have to account for the value of the Tabernacle’s mobility. In those days, most gods were regional. A god of Babylon was only the god of Babylon. If Assyria showed up and defeated Babylon, then that meant the Assyrian god was stronger than the Babylonian god.
Jehovah’s tabernacle moved with the people, and wherever it went, God was in control, whether that’s at the base of Mt. Sinai, somewhere in the Sinai Peninsula, or in Canaan after the conquest. Wherever the Tabernacle went, God went. And wherever the tabernacle was, the courtyard logically followed.
Why is that important? In a physical sense, sacrifices to God could theoretically happen in any region. He wasn’t limited by geography as other gods were, as long as the Tabernacle was erected.
In a spiritual sense, our sacrifices can (and should) happen anywhere as well. We’re not limited by our inability to find a church building, an elder, or anything else. We can pray to God whenever we want; He’s the God of it all.
In 1 Kings 8:47, as Solomon dedicates the Temple, he pleads for God to remember those who turn to Him even if they’re taken captive into another land. Though they’re not near the Temple, God can still hear their plea and respond.
The courtyard was obviously where the sacrifices took place, but the mobility of the entire structure is a testament to God’s omnipresence. God chose to have His presence in the Tabernacle, but He’s not limited to that one place (Acts 7:48-49). He hears His people anywhere and everywhere, no matter how far away they are when they call.
