Exodus 25:1-9; 26:1, 31-37
SS Lesson for 03/09/2025
Devotional Scripture: Heb 9:1-6
The narrative of Scripture as a whole can be summarized according to the ways that God mediates his presence to his creation. After banishing humans from the Garden of Eden, where God himself walked (Genesis 3:8), he set in motion a plan to restore the relationship that had been broken by sin. God’s rescue of Israel from the Egyptians was a major step in that plan. Two months later, God initiated a covenant agreement with the Israelites (Exodus 19). The Sinai covenant was given for God’s people to be able to live with the divine presence in their midst. Their breaking of the covenant didn’t take long (Exodus 32:7-8). Even so, God continued in faithfulness as he brought the Israelites to the land of inheritance, the land promised to them as children of Abraham (Genesis 13:14-17). In the context of today’s lesson, Moses, living more than 500 years after Abraham, had gone up Mount Sinai and entered the cloud of God’s presence (Exodus 24:15-18). During that 40-day encounter, God gave him instructions for a tabernacle, for the items to fill it, and for the ministry of the priests. These instructions span Exodus 25-31 (see lesson 3). God desired to grant access to his holy presence, but that required a systematic approach to prevent anything profane (not just sin, but also things ritually unclean) from entering the tabernacle.
And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.
(Scriptural Text from the New King James Version; cross-references from the NIV)
1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
2 "Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering.
3 And this is the offering which you shall take from them: gold, silver, and bronze;
4 blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen, and goats' hair;
5 ram skins dyed red, badger skins, and acacia wood;
6 oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense;
7 onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate.
8 And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.
9 According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it.
20 Then the whole Israelite community withdrew from Moses' presence, 21 and everyone who was willing and whose heart moved him came and brought an offering to the Lord for the work on the Tent of Meeting, for all its service, and for the sacred garments.
9 The people rejoiced at the willing response of their leaders, for they had given freely and wholeheartedly to the Lord. David the king also rejoiced greatly.
68 When they arrived at the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, some of the heads of the families gave freewill offerings toward the rebuilding of the house of God on its site.
12 For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.
2 With all my resources I have provided for the temple of my God — gold for the gold work, silver for the silver, bronze for the bronze, iron for the iron and wood for the wood, as well as onyx for the settings, turquoise, stones of various colors, and all kinds of fine stone and marble — all of these in large quantities.
17 I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity. All these things have I given willingly and with honest intent. And now I have seen with joy how willingly your people who are here have given to you.
7 Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
3 Besides, in my devotion to the temple of my God I now give my personal treasures of gold and silver for the temple of my God, over and above everything I have provided for this holy temple:
7 Moreover, King Cyrus brought out the articles belonging to the temple of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and had placed in the temple of his god.
15 Moreover, you are to take with you the silver and gold that the king and his advisers have freely given to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, 16 together with all the silver and gold you may obtain from the province of Babylon, as well as the freewill offerings of the people and priests for the temple of their God in Jerusalem.
3 They brought as their gifts before the Lord six covered carts and twelve oxen — an ox from each leader and a cart from every two. These they presented before the tabernacle.
26:1 "Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine woven linen and blue, purple, and scarlet thread; with artistic designs of cherubim you shall weave them.
31 "You shall make a veil woven of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen. It shall be woven with an artistic design of cherubim.
32 You shall hang it upon the four pillars of acacia wood overlaid with gold. Their hooks shall be gold, upon four sockets of silver.
33 And you shall hang the veil from the clasps. Then you shall bring the ark of the Testimony in there, behind the veil. The veil shall be a divider for you between the holy place and the Most Holy.
34 You shall put the mercy seat upon the ark of the Testimony in the Most Holy.
35 You shall set the table outside the veil, and the lampstand across from the table on the side of the tabernacle toward the south; and you shall put the table on the north side.
36 "You shall make a screen for the door of the tabernacle, woven of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, made by a weaver.
37 And you shall make for the screen five pillars of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold; their hooks shall be gold, and you shall cast five sockets of bronze for them.
8 All the skilled men among the workmen made the tabernacle with ten curtains of finely twisted linen and blue, purple and scarlet yarn, with cherubim worked into them by a skilled craftsman.
36 "For the entrance to the tent make a curtain of blue, purple and scarlet yarn and finely twisted linen — the work of an embroiderer.
7 "Make curtains of goat hair for the tent over the tabernacle — eleven altogether.
31 "Make a curtain of blue, purple and scarlet yarn and finely twisted linen, with cherubim worked into it by a skilled craftsman.
2 The Lord said to Moses: "Tell your brother Aaron not to come whenever he chooses into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud over the atonement cover.
15 "He shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and take its blood behind the curtain and do with it as he did with the bull's blood: He shall sprinkle it on the atonement cover and in front of it.
51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split.
3 Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place,
8 At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister and to pronounce blessings in His name, as they still do today.
37 Bezalel made the ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. 2 He overlaid it with pure gold, both inside and out, and made a gold molding around it.
3 Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, 4 which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron's staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant.
6 When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. 7 The Lord's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God.
22 Moses placed the table in the Tent of Meeting on the north side of the tabernacle outside the curtain 23 and set out the bread on it before the Lord, as the Lord commanded him.
2 A tabernacle was set up. In its first room were the lampstand, the table and the consecrated bread; this was called the Holy Place.
31 "Make a lampstand of pure gold and hammer it out, base and shaft; its flowerlike cups, buds and blossoms shall be of one piece with it.
20 The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches. Note: Tradition also believes it represents the six days of creation and/or the seven days of the week,
"Only voluntary gifts were acceptable as materials for the Lord’s house (Exodus 25:2; Exodus 35:3; Exodus 35:21-22; Exodus 35:29), since love rather than compulsion is the basis of all truly biblical giving (2 Corinthians 9:7)." [Note: Youngblood, p. 113.]
Moses usually employed one of four different terms to describe the tabernacle each of which emphasizes one of its purposes, though other names also appear.
1. Sanctuary (Exodus 25:8) means "place of holiness" and stresses the transcendence of Israel’s God as an exalted being different from His people. However this verse also states that such a God would "dwell among" His people. [Note: See Angel Manuel Rodriguez, "Sanctuary Theology in the Book of Exodus," Andrews University Seminary Studies 24:2 (Summer 1986):127-45.]
2. Tabernacle (Exodus 25:9) means "dwelling place" and emphasizes God’s purpose of abiding near His people. The tabernacle looked like the other nomads’ tents that the Israelites lived in. They would have thought of it as God’s tent among their tents. It had furniture, just as their tents did.
"Just as they lived in tents, so God would condescend to ’dwell’ in a tent." [Note: Youngblood, p. 114.]
3. Tent of Meeting (Exodus 26:36; Exodus 29:42-43; Exodus 35:21) also stresses the imminence of God. God met with Moses and the Israelites in this tent. The verb translated "meeting" means a deliberate prearranged rendezvous rather than a casual accidental meeting. Some scholars believe that the tent of meeting was a structure different from the tabernacle and that it was always outside the camp of Israel. [Note: E.g., Eugene H. Merrill, Deuteronomy, p. 401.]
4. Tabernacle (or Tent) of Testimony (Exodus 38:21; Numbers 9:15; Numbers 17:7-8) indicates that the structure was the repository of the Law. Moses sometimes referred to the ark of the covenant as the "ark of the testimony" (Exodus 25:22) that contained the "two tablets of the testimony" (Exodus 31:18) on which were the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are the "testimony." They were the essential stipulations of the Mosaic Covenant, the heart of the relationship between God and His people.
God designed the tabernacle structure and all its furnishings to teach the Israelites about Himself and how they as sinners could have a relationship with Him.
"The thoughts of God concerning salvation and His kingdom, which the earthly building was to embody and display, were visibly set forth in the pattern shown [to Moses]." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, 2:167.]
"The tabernacle also provided a prophetic prefigurement of the redemptive program of God as focused in Jesus Christ. . . . [It] was a remarkable picture of the high priestly work of Christ both here on earth and His eternal work in the heavens." [Note: Davis, pp. 245-56.]
"Probably the conception of the tabhnith, the ’model’ (Exodus 25:9), also goes back ultimately to the idea that the earthly sanctuary is the counterpart of the heavenly dwelling of a deity." [Note: Frank M. Cross Jr., "The Tabernacle," Biblical Archaeologist 10:3 (September 1947):62. For a good introduction to the background of the tabernacle, see G. Ernest Wright, "The Significance of the Temple in the Ancient Near East," Biblical Archaeologist 7:4 (December 1944):65-77. Cf. Exodus 25:40; Hebrews 8:5.]
(Adapted from URL:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/dcc/exodus-25.html#google_vignette)
If we miss the wider context, these instructions for an offering and construction of a tabernacle seem oddly specific. Today, there is greater cultural consciousness around the giving of the Ten Commandments than the building of a mobile sanctuary, but the irony is that the tabernacle was at the heart of the covenant as the most important blessing that Israel received: instructions to house the presence of God. As the people whom God had chosen to reflect his holiness, the ancient Israelites needed to live in such a way as to reflect their holy status. Otherwise, they would not be allowed to keep God’s presence with them (Ezekiel 10). The planning of materials, arrangement, and careful division of duties were necessary for this task. Without instructions, the people of Israel—who were by no means free of sin—could not have endured a holy God in their midst. But with the careful management of access, no one would haphazardly wander into the sacred space and look upon God enthroned above the atonement cover, for this would mean certain death (see a warning even to Aaron in Leviticus 16:2). Thus, God is the ultimate planner. Not only did he plan the construction of a tabernacle, but he ensured that his people would have the necessary materials before they left the land of Egypt. Both in the Sinai covenant and in the new covenant, God can make a way for his presence to be with his people.