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Text: Exodus 26
Prepare to meet the king
- I used to read all this architecture and overlaying this and that and detailing this and that and make that this long and this tall. It was all very boring. But all these intricate and beautiful details explain how the nation needed to prepare to meet with their heavenly king.
- Highly skilled craftsmanship was required to detail and ornament the furniture. The curtains that make up the walls of the Tabernacle were to be made with cunning work (vs 1).
- Overlay all the furniture and the walls in the meeting place with gold.
- Look at 26:29, 32 and 37.
- Gold is used because it’s valuable. And if you’re going to make a place for a king, then you’ll be using highly skilled labor along with the most valuable materials. Gold isn’t representing deity, gold is how you honor the presence of the King.
The outer covering is animal skin, not particularly beautiful
- In verses 7 and 14, the Tabernacle would be covered in ram skins and badger skins.
- In stark contrast to the ornate and costly inside, the outside was common, durable, and exposed to the world.
It is called a tent
- In verse 11 the tabernacle is called a tent. As far as tents are concerned, Israel’s history was a history of living in tents. Abraham lived in a tent. Isaac lived in a tent. Jacob lived in a tent. Moses gave up the palace for a tent. John the Baptist probably lived in a tent in the wilderness. Interesting that Paul takes up tent-making in the New Testament as a way of earning income. This blueprint for the Tent may come from Abraham’s tent design or somewhere back in Israel’s history.
- The fact that God would meet them in a tent communicated the temporary nature of this whole arrangement.
- The LORD stretched out the heavens as a tent to dwell in meaning the current state of things is temporary.
The veil
- From verses 31-37 Moses describes the veil that separates the Holiest place from the holy sanctuary where the presence of God would be.
- The lesson here wasn’t apparent until the LORD Jesus Christ showed up in his humanity. See Hebrews 10:19-25 for the interpretation.
- The Father values obedience to His will and no man performed the will of God without sin until the LORD Jesus Christ. It was necessary that Christ would be a man to please the Father. And by this obtain access to the Father for humanity.
- So this veil is eventually torn apart after Jesus Christ has completed a man’s life fully living out the will of the Father in Matthew 27:51.
