Exodus 26:36 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Make a hanging for the door of the tent It is plain from the former part of this description, (Exodus 26:12-23,) that the ark and mercy-seat were in the west end of the tabernacle, that is, the door or entrance fronted the east: so that the Israelites, in worshipping Jehovah, turned their faces toward the west, where the ark was; it being thus contrived, says Theodoret, that the sun might pay a kind of symbolical adoration to Jehovah, by darting his first rays into the sanctuary, and that the Israelites might be thus figuratively, taught to turn from the worship of that luminary, the great idol of the nations, and to adore the God who made him. Before the entrance then of the first tabernacle, or the holy place, was the curtain here spoken of to be hung, which may be called the first veil, as that mentioned Exodus 26:31, which divided the holy place from the most holy, is called the second veil, Hebrews 9:2-3.