Exodus: The Lord and His PilgrimsНамуна

Priorities

In Exodus chapters 36–40 we find three additional tabernacle Lists – making four in total. We have already read the List of Specification (chapters 25–31), setting out what is to be provided. Next come the List of Manufacture (chapters 36–39), detailing how each item is to be made; the List of Construction (40:1–16), describing how to put it all together; and the List of Erection (40:17–33), where it is finally built. How very important the tabernacle is, then, to command such space and repeated detail! 

This is underlined by another statistic – 35:1 states the principle governing the whole enterprise: ‘which the Lord has commanded you to do’. This insistence on divine authorisation and detailed design comes twenty-three times – including, in chapter 39, seven times of individual articles, and, in chapter 40, seven times in the course of erection. We should understand this as a mandate to study every detail of the tabernacle: everything is where and what it is by divine direction. The Lord planned, directed and oversaw it all. There is truth in every symbol, and there is a central truth in the whole – the tabernacle achieves the purpose the Lord had in mind when he set about redeeming his people from Egypt: ‘that I may dwell among them’ (29:46). 

Israel is a tent-dwelling people; the Lord will live in his tent alongside them. We see this worked out in Numbers 2 in how Israel is to set up camp. Think of the camp like a great cross, with the Judah tribes stretching out in a line east, the Reuben tribes to the south, the Ephraim tribes on the west, and the Dan tribes northwards. But at the exact centre of the crossing is the Lord’s tent, the tabernacle. The Lord is in the middle of his people. Everything else is an adjunct to that great reality – the sacrifices, the mercy seat, the work of the Priests and Levites; all else is in the interest of enabling and securing the presence of the Holy One among sinners.

This is the problem Haggai faces when his people turn from building the Lord’s house: do they not want the Lord at the centre of their lives (Hag. 1:2–4)? Moses’ people do – look at their response on the great gift day (36:4–7)! And should we not go all out to avoid and banish whatever offends his presence and to cultivate everything that he desires and that delights him?

Reflection 

We are given another priority in 35:1–3, which is the last of seven times the Sabbath law is referred to. The Lord is serious about the ‘apartness’ of his holy day.