Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 40:17

17 And it came to pass in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was reared up.

The tabernacle was fully established on the first day of the new year. This was the beginning of Year 2, the Israelites having reset their calendars when God broke the pride of the Egyptians and led His people out of the land. Thus, the Israelites had been on this sojourn for exactly one year. The feast of the Passover would be happening in just over a week, the first one since Israel’s liberation, and the tabernacle would be ready for that holy day.

I assume that it took a few months for the Israelites to travel through the wilderness and reach Mount Sinai. Once there, we know that the process of obtaining the Lord’s law took two periods of forty days each, so nearly three months, and construction on the tabernacle began after that. Thus, I would assume that at most the Israelites had only half a year to complete construction on the Lord’s dwelling. It may have been considerably less. That seems like a remarkably short time for such a large and complex undertaking, but somehow it was accomplished.

Thus far, we have heard God’s initial description of the tabernacle to Moses, Moses’s retelling of those instructions to the Israelites, the work of the Israelites in creating each part, and the presentation of the completed elements to Moses. Thus, we have run through all the different elements of the tabernacle four times already, and now we will do so for a fifth time to describe how Moses had each element assembled for the full construction. This description will be a little different, though, as we will hear function and life being instilled into each component along the way. Bread will be placed for the first time on the table, fire lit for the first time in the lamp, incense offered for the first time on the incense altar, and so on. At long last, it is all coming alive.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 26:22-25

22 And for the sides of the tabernacle westward thou shalt make six boards.

23 And two boards shalt thou make for the corners of the tabernacle in the two sides.

24 And they shall be coupled together beneath, and they shall be coupled together above the head of it unto one ring: thus shall it be for them both; they shall be for the two corners.

25 And they shall be eight boards, and their sockets of silver, sixteen sockets; two sockets under one board, and two sockets under another board.

Yesterday we heard how the sides of the tabernacle would be formed by erecting twenty boards side-by-side, now we hear of the back of the tabernacle, on the West side, which was to be made of six main boards and two corner boards. It is not specified if there was anything unique about the corner boards. Perhaps they were not as wide as the others, or perhaps they were folded in ninety-degrees to form a corner, or perhaps they were laid at an angle between the back and the side of the tabernacle.

In any case, the width of the tabernacle seems to be, at most, eight boards at one-and-a-half cubits each, or 12 cubits in all. As mentioned yesterday, the length of the tabernacle was 30 cubits and the height was 10, so it was 2.5 times as long as it was wide, 3 times as long as it was tall and only slightly wider than it was tall.

The first curtain laid over the tabernacle was twenty-eight cubits long, and the second was thirty. Covering from the north side to the south side would be 10 cubits for the height of one wall, 10 cubits for the height of the other, and the 12 cubits mentioned for the width in today’s verses, coming to a total of 32 cubits, which would suggest that neither of the curtains could reach all the way from end-to-end. This might mean that the curtains ended in ropes and that were staked into the ground, or it might mean that the socketed parts of the boards were embedded in the ground, which would make all the walls shorter, which could then be covered by both layers of curtain.

One last point is how the corners are “coupled” together at the top and the bottom. This would suggest that there was some sort of fastener that would hold the north wall and the south wall to the back. This is the first we’ve heard of supporting elements to hold the tabernacle as one, but we will hear more of these elements in tomorrow’s verses.

Note: It can be difficult to visualize some of the structures described in these verses. Here is an excellent and extremely focused series of animations that show the visual form of the temple and its instruments, built up verse-by-verse from the Exodus record: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpjohncRg94EZ55nJrbaKfi-lfeo3MFgl&si=6wm1J9Sdnu7LKYC_

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 26:18-21

18 And thou shalt make the boards for the tabernacle, twenty boards on the south side southward.

19 And thou shalt make forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards; two sockets under one board for his two tenons, and two sockets under another board for his two tenons.

20 And for the second side of the tabernacle on the north side there shall be twenty boards:

21 And their forty sockets of silver; two sockets under one board, and two sockets under another board.

Today we start to get the count of the boards. The tabernacle would have two long sides, which would face to the North and the South. They would each be comprised of 20 boards, each board was a cubit-and-a-half wide, so 30 cubits length in all, or approximately 45 feet.

The first layer of curtains we were told was to be made of ten parts, each four cubits wide, so forty cubits for the whole, which would be enough to cover the entire length of thirty cubits for the tabernacle and the ten cubits of height for the back wall. The second layer of curtains was made of eleven parts, so forty-four cubits for the whole, which would be enough to cover the top, the back, and have a little left over at the front to form a border around the entrance, as was described in those earlier verses.

Yesterday we also heard how each board would be forked into two tenons at the base, and today we hear that these would each be inserted into a double socket made of silver, providing a solid foundation for the structure.

Note: It can be difficult to visualize some of the structures described in these verses. Here is an excellent and extremely focused series of animations that show the visual form of the temple and its instruments, built up verse-by-verse from the Exodus record: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpjohncRg94EZ55nJrbaKfi-lfeo3MFgl&si=6wm1J9Sdnu7LKYC_

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 26:15-17

15 And thou shalt make boards for the tabernacle of shittim wood standing up.

16 Ten cubits shall be the length of a board, and a cubit and a half shall be the breadth of one board.

17 Two tenons shall there be in one board, set in order one against another: thus shalt thou make for all the boards of the tabernacle.

We now discuss the body of the temple, the frame that the curtains will be laid over. The boards are to be constructed of the same shittim wood that is at the core of all the temple instruments.

This raises an interesting question. These boards were not of insignificant length: 10 cubits tall, which is approximately 15 feet. This means that to make a board of this length one needs a tree that grows straight and tall. The shittah tree can grow very tall, even over 60 feet, but it is known for having twisted and gnarled trunks. With careful selection, perhaps the Israelites were able to find angles in the tree from which sufficiently long boards could be extracted. Or perhaps they had to resort to special techniques to reshape curved portions, such as steam bending, or even they might have had to find ways to construct the boards from several composite parts, such as with scarf joints. I don’t actually know if the construction of these boards would have been a special challenge, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it required special thought and selection.

Whatever the process, they were to create dozens of boards that stood 10 cubits tall, a cubit-and-a-half wide, and each with “two tenons” at the bottom, which means the board was forked into two shafts at the base. As we will see in tomorrow’s verses, those forked ends would be perfect for inserting the boards into a solid foundation.

Note: It can be difficult to visualize some of the structures described in these verses. Here is an excellent and extremely focused series of animations that show the visual form of the temple and its instruments, built up verse-by-verse from the Exodus record: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpjohncRg94EZ55nJrbaKfi-lfeo3MFgl&si=6wm1J9Sdnu7LKYC_