Exodus/Shemoth 25 – "Make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them."

[This is a Sinaite’s perspective/commentary given as introduction to this chapter..  We usually present the Chapter un-interrupted by commentary so that our visitors can read through and focus on the words of YHWH and understand on his own, without help. The next post features commentary per verse from our usual 3 sources. Translation: EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.–Admin1.]

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 What a brilliant idea only the Creator could conceive!

 

This invisible God plans to travel among His chosen people and how does He intend to do this? A visible portable special dwelling, much like the tents that His people set up when they camp, and take apart when they move. 

 

The contents? Perfectly designed minimalist furniture, symbolic and functional, all fitting the purpose of the mishkan.

What earthly dwelling could possibly contain the God of the universe? Surely, this was not so much for Him as it was to make His ‘visibility’ plain among His people as well as to the nations who would watch this bunch of freed slaves cross their territory with the Presence of their powerful God journeying with them.

 

A God traveling with His people or a people traveling with their God—what a spectacle it must have been!  YHWH manifesting as pillar of fire by night and glory cloud by day, announcing His Presence in the Ark of the Covenant, speaking to Moses from the Tent of Meeting.

 

The remaining chapters of Exodus/Shemoth are devoted to details in the construction of the sanctuary. We know that following instructions is not as easy as it sounds, so Moses is shown a pattern.  

 

As Christians/Messianics, we were given the impression that YHWH had shown Moses a vision of the heavenly tabernacle on which he would base the earthly tabernacle, based on the NT book of Hebrews.  The original verse in Torah however shows that the pattern was shown to Moses on the mountain, but nothing is said about Moses getting a glimpse of the heavenly sanctuary:

 

Vs. 40. And see that you make them after their pattern, 

which has been shown you in the mountain.

 

Indeed, how could an earthly replica even resemble the original ‘heavenly’ dwelling of God?  Solomon declared in his prayer (1 Kings 8:27) when he dedicated the magnificent Temple he was privileged to build in Jerusalem:

 

 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth?

Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You.

How much less this temple which I have built!”

 

 

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Exodus/Shemoth 25

1 Now YHVH spoke to Moshe, saying:
2 Speak to the Children of Israel,

that they may take me a raised-contribution; 

from every man whose heart makes-him-willing, you are to take my contribution.
3 And this is the contribution that you are to take from them: 

gold, silver, and bronze,
4 blue-violet, purple, and worm-scarlet (yarn), byssus, and goats’-hair,
5 rams’ skins dyed-red, tanned-leather skins, 

acacia wood,
6 oil for lighting, 

spices for oil of anointing and for fragrant smoking-incense,
7 onyx stones, stones for setting 

for the efod and for the breastpiece.
8 Let them make me a Holy-shrine

that I may dwell amidst them.
9 According to all that I grant you to see, 

the building-pattern of the Dwelling and the building-pattern of all its implements, 

thus are you to make it.
10 They are to make

a coffer of acacia wood, 

two cubits and a half its length, 

a cubit and a half its width, 

and a cubit and a half its height.
11 You are to overlay it with pure gold,

inside and outside you are to overlay it, 

and are to make upon it a rim of gold all around.
12 You are to cast for it four rings of gold 

and are to put them upon its four feet,

with two rings on its one flank 

and two rings on its second flank.
13 You are to make poles of acacia wood

and are to overlay them with gold
14 and are to bring the poles into the rings on the flanks of the coffer,

to carry the coffer by (means of) them.
15 In the rings of the coffer are the poles to remain,

they are not to be removed from it.
16 And you are to put in the coffer

the Testimony that I give you.
17 You are to make a purgation-cover of pure gold, 

two cubits and a half its length 

and a cubit and a half its width.
18 You are to make two winged-sphinxes of gold, 

of hammered-work are you to make them,

at the two ends of the purgation-cover.
19 Make one sphinx at the end here 

and one sphinx at the end there;

from the purgation-cover are you to make the two sphinxes, 

at its two ends.
20 And the sphinxes are to be spreading (their) wings upward 

with their wings sheltering the purgation-cover,

their faces, each-one 

toward the other; toward the purgation-cover are the sphinxes’ faces to be.
21 You are to put the purgation-cover on the coffer, above it, 

and in the coffer you are to put

the Testimony that I give you.
22 I will appoint-meeting with you there 

and I will speak with you 

from above the purgation-cover,

from between the sphinxes that are on the coffer of Testimony- 

all that I command you 

concerning the Children of Israel.
23 You are to make a table of acacia wood,

two cubits its length, 

a cubit its width, 

and a cubit and a half its height;
24 you are to overlay it with pure gold. 

You are to make a rim of gold for it, all around,
25 you are to make for it a border, a handbreadth all around, 

thus you are to make a rim of gold for its border, all around.
26 You are to make for it four rings of gold 

and are to put the rings at the four edges, where its four legs (are).
27 Parallel to the border are the rings to be, 

as holders for the poles, to carry the table.
28 You are to make the poles of acacia wood, and are to overlay them with gold,

that the table may be carried by (means of) them.
29 You are to make its plates and its ladles,

its jars and its jugs, from which (offerings) are poured; 

of pure gold are you to make them.
30 And you are to put on the table 

the Bread of the Presence, before my presence, regularly.
31 You are to make a lampstand of pure gold; 

of hammered-work is the lampstand to be made, its shaft and its stem; 

its goblets, its knobs and its blossoms are to be from it.
32 Six stems issue from its sides,

three lamp-stems from the one side, 

and three lamp-stems from the second side:
33 three almond-shaped goblets on the one stem, with knobs and blossoms, 

and three almond-shaped goblets on the other stem, with knobs and blossoms-

thus for the six stems that issue from the lampstand;
34 and on the lampstand (itself) four almond-shaped goblets, with their knobs and their blossoms,
35 a knob beneath two stems, from it, 

a knob beneath two stems, from it,

and a knob beneath two stems, from it,

for the six stems that issue from the lampstand.
36 Their knobs and their stems are to be from it, 

all of it hammered-work, of pure gold.
37 You are to make its lamps, seven (of them), 

you are to draw up its lampwicks so that they light up (the space) across from it.
38 And its tongs and its trays (shall be) of pure gold.
39 (From) an ingot of pure gold they are to make it, together with all these implements.
40 Now see 

and make,

according to their building-pattern which you are granted to see upon the mountain.