Since the number fifty designates true rest in the Holy Spirit, and a ring seems to have neither beginning nor end, and gold is the most precious of metals, excelling all others in its brightness, what is expressed in the fifty golden rings except the perpetual brightness and bright perpetuity of the highest repose? And the rings grip the loops of the curtains in such a way that one tabernacle might be made out of them all when the glory of the heavenly kingdom graciously pours itself into the pure minds of the faithful, so that with the glue of such healing inspiration the church is made perfect out of the two peoples, or perhaps we should say out of all Christ’s elect.

And since the reprobate perish in eternity while the righteous are reigning with the Lord, rightly is it said further on that this side of the tabernacle looks to the sea.^[1] Now this signifies the Red Sea, in which Pharaoh with his host was drowned and from which Israel, having been saved by the Lord, went up to Mt. Sinai where they made the tabernacle. Therefore the western side of the tabernacle looks back to the sea when after the perfection of good works the holy church is crowned in Christ and gazes freely upon the failings or the punishments of the impious, which [Christ] has decreed by his own command.

Sometimes, however, under one figure of either an act or an utterance, two terms may have one meaning. Thus the boards which were fitted together into the construction of the ark signify both the faithful and the eight souls who were saved in the same ark. Similarly, in the Gospel, in the parable of the sheepfold, Christ himself is both the shepherd and the door.^[1]

Here, therefore, we must assume that a bar was stretched across the ten cubits of the width of the tabernacle, from the top of the boards in front to the top on the other side. [It was] firmly positioned with a head on the boards on each side in such a way that by means of it that side of the tabernacle which rested not on boards but on pillars might also remain immovable, no less firmly fixed than the other [side], even when the wind was blowing against it.

If you should also wish to understand the sacrament of this bar, in a figurative manner it unambiguously signifies our Redeemer himself, who passed through from corner to corner, as it were. He reached out from the Jewish people, which he had previously chosen for himself, to make atonement also for the sake of the salvation of the multitude of the Gentiles. Hence, just as in the prophets he can for good reason be called the cornerstone,^[1] so also in the law can he be called the corner bar. He is cornerstone, evidently, in relation to the temple which is constructed for God out of living stones.^[2] He is corner bar in relation to the tabernacle which is built for him out of imperishable wood, that is, out of the souls of the elect, which are free from the stain of corruption.

We know that in God’s tabernacle not only bowls but ladles too were made at the Lord’s bidding. The bowls signify a more than sufficient teaching, the ladles a small and limited knowledge. One full of true teaching fills the minds of his hearers and in this way provides a bowl by what he says. Another cannot expound what he perceives, but because he proclaims it as best he can he truly offers a ladle to taste. You who are in God’s tabernacle, in his holy church, if you cannot fill bowls with the wisdom of your teaching, give to your neighbors ladles filled with a good word, as much as you have from the divine bounty. Draw others as far as you consider you have advanced. Desire to have comrades on your way toward God.