Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus Summary

My study of Exodus began just over two years ago. It’s been a long journey, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it all. To put it simply, the book is a titan of spiritual and ethical wisdom. My main finding was that the book takes the symbols and spirit of Genesis and begins to concretize them in law and ritual. It is the start of the conceptual becoming physical, of God becoming flesh.

Exodus still has some vestiges of the old legends, but overall, it isn’t as supernatural as Genesis was. It is, in fact, a necessary complement to Genesis. It shows the world becoming more like the one that we see today. Yes, strange powers and manifestations of the divine are still somewhat expected, but we are ramping down, and eventually every intervention of the Almighty will become unique and miraculous.

To quickly summarize the events of Exodus, we began with the death of Joseph, the last of the patriarchs, then launched hundreds of years into the future, at which point the Israelites were slaves to the Egyptians. When Pharaoh tried to kill all the new males Moses was saved, and he was able to grow into a privileged position. As an adult he observed the plight of the other Israelites, and he tried to help them, but his effort ended in failure. His heart was in the right place, but he was insufficient to the task, so he fled into the wilderness instead, lived an entire life there, and presumably had no intentions of ever returning to his people.

It was at this moment, however, that God performed His first act of intervention. He called Moses to go back to the Israelites and free them. This time Moses would be successful, because this time he would not function in his own power, but in the power of the Lord. Moses took some convincing, but ultimately, he returned to Egypt, where he performed many miracles and raised many plagues, each symbolic of the evil and sin that the Egyptians had given themselves over to. This sequence of events became an epic battle between the pride of Pharaoh and the power of God. This, of course, was a type for all mankind who will cleave to their own ways to the bitter end. Ultimately, God won the contest by exercising His power of death upon both the firstborn and armies of Egypt. This, at last, broke Egypt’s grasp on Israel, and the chosen people went free.

In the second half of the book, Israel took its journey into the wilderness. The people faced adversity with the lack of food and water, but their response to this was inappropriate. Rather than seeking relief from the Lord in humility, they threatened to abandon Him. They even went so far as to create a false idol and raised a rebellion against the Lord.

In spite of all this, God continued to strive with the people, humbling them, and delivering his law by degrees to them. Only after these were properly received, He also gave them the command to build the tabernacle. It was a large task, but the people accomplished it beautifully, and in the final chapter we read how God’s presence came to dwell personally in that house, becoming a permanent fixture in the Israelite community.

This book has taken us on a grand two-part journey. First, we fell into slavery and sin; then we returned back to the Lord through miracle, repentance, and covenant. We have gone down to the deepest depths, even those of the Red Sea, then up to the highest heights, even those of Mount Sinai. This story is a recreation of fundamental archetypes that were first laid out in Genesis, such as the fall of Adam and Eve, the acceptable offerings of Abel, the consuming of the wicked in the flood, the deliverance of the righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah, to only name a few. This story takes those archetypes and adds itself to them, becoming the template for many more stories that will follow in the Biblical record.

What an epic experience this has been! I’m sad to leave it behind, and admittedly I’m unsure that I’ll be able to recognize as much richness and meaning in the following books of Moses. I’ve been surprised before, though, so I will proceed with my Old Testament analysis, picking up the book of Leviticus after a short break. During that break I will post various essays and in-between messages, probably extending for a week or two before returning to my scriptural analysis.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 40:35-38

35 And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

36 And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys:

37 But if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up.

38 For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.

God’s presence was so powerful that not even Moses was able to enter into it. It was a place of overwhelming divinity and majesty. God’s glory being described as an occupying cloud and fire calls to mind both His presence upon Mount Sinai and the pillar that led the Israelites across the Red Sea and protected their retreat from the Egyptians.

We are further told that God’s cloud was used to signal the movements of the Israelites. While the cloud remained, they lived in their tents, and when the cloud removed, they journeyed further into the wilderness. So, too, we today must pay attention to God’s spirit to know our own comings and goings. There is an appropriate season for all things, and we look to the Lord to know which season we are in now.

There is an interesting implication in the cloud remaining over the tabernacle all the time that Israel was camped. That would mean that the priests were performing their duties within this cloud, and those that came to make an offering would literally pass into the physical domain of the Lord, being encompassed by His glory, as if they were now a part of His body. What a supernatural and symbolic experience that must have been!

This also suggests that God’s glory could preside in varying degrees of intensity. It was evidently too consuming for anyone to enter at the time of dedication, but it must have tamed down somewhat to permit entry afterward. We are able to endure some of the Lord’s majesty now, perhaps some of us to greater degree and some of us to lesser. We hope to one day be transfigured to the point that we can survive the full strength of His infinite glory.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 40:34

34 Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

It has been a long time to get to this point, but here we have the final step in the creation of the tabernacle. After weeks of planning and months of labor, after verifying and recording the correctness of all that was done, the Israelites have finished their work and turned it over to the Lord. Now, the Lord, in turn, descends, and His presence sanctifies the place. God takes the man’s vessel and makes it holy, which is a transformation that man could never effect on his own. Up until this point the tabernacle was just a beautiful building, but thanks to the Almighty’s touch, it is now divine.

This moment also calls to mind the story of Cain and Abel, and their offerings to the Lord. In this moment, Israel has made a good offering, like Abel, and God had respect to it. Recall that this wasn’t the largest offering that could have been made, Moses turned away Israelites who were trying to contribute more. The offering didn’t need to be the grandest, it just needed to be right, and the Lord has shown in this moment that it was.

This is a transformative moment in the history of the world. Once the earth was a paradise and God seems to have walked it in the flesh. After the fall of Adam and Eve, though, a separation was made. God ceased to have an abiding presence on the earth and became primarily a voice from heaven. He may have made the occasional appearance to Abraham or to Moses in the burning bush, but these were isolated moments, He still did not live among man. Now all of that changes. For the first time since the Garden of Eden, God has a home among the community, a constant presence among mankind. Heaven may still be God’s native dwelling place, but now a part of Him is able to be with the Israelites always.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 40:20-29

20 And he took and put the testimony into the ark, and set the staves on the ark, and put the mercy seat above upon the ark:

21 And he brought the ark into the tabernacle, and set up the veil of the covering, and covered the ark of the testimony; as the Lord commanded Moses.

22 And he put the table in the tent of the congregation, upon the side of the tabernacle northward, without the veil.

23 And he set the bread in order upon it before the Lord; as the Lord had commanded Moses.

24 And he put the candlestick in the tent of the congregation, over against the table, on the side of the tabernacle southward.

25 And he lighted the lamps before the Lord; as the Lord commanded Moses.

26 And he put the golden altar in the tent of the congregation before the veil:

27 And he burnt sweet incense thereon; as the Lord commanded Moses.

28 And he set up the hanging at the door of the tabernacle.

29 And he put the altar of burnt offering by the door of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation, and offered upon it the burnt offering and the meat offering; as the Lord commanded Moses.

As mentioned recently, this description of the tabernacle’s parts is different from every run-through that we’ve had thus far. This time, in addition to hearing all of the items and their placement, we are also hearing each of their functions being exercised. The Ark of the Covenant is a container, and so the testimony is now placed into it. The table is to hold the shewbread, and so now the bread is baked and placed thereon. The candlestick is to provide light, and so now its lamps are lighted. The golden altar is for offering incense, and so now the incense is burned upon it. The brass altar is for animal sacrifice, so now a meat offering is made.

Everything is fulfilling its purpose, filling the measure of its creation, made complete by being allowed to do the thing that it was made to do. Everything in God’s world has a purpose and a function. Plants and animals, mountains and valleys, fire and water, gravity and buoyancy, soil and sky. None of these are just an adornment, they all are made to serve a necessary function. Their systems combine to make life, complexity, and beauty possible.

And if such is true for the tabernacle and all the earth, surely it is true of us as well. We are made for a purpose. Fulfilling that purpose is the difference between merely existing and truly living. It takes us from saying, “I just am,” to “I am for a reason.”

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 40:18-19

18 And Moses reared up the tabernacle, and fastened his sockets, and set up the boards thereof, and put in the bars thereof, and reared up his pillars.

19 And he spread abroad the tent over the tabernacle, and put the covering of the tent above upon it; as the Lord commanded Moses.

The verse here says that “Moses reared the tabernacle.” However, it seems certain that some of these tasks would be beyond the capacity of a single man alone, particularly one in his eighties. Indeed, the very first step involved lifting and placing fifteen-foot boards into their sockets, and after they were all placed, massive coverings had to be run over the top of them! It seems that today’s verses must mean that Moses oversaw the rearing of the tabernacle, and so the responsibility for it is attributed to him.

Interestingly, this would mean Moses assuming the role of a divinely sanctioned foreman. Israel had just come from a land where they labored as slaves, under the direction of wicked masters. Now they labored voluntarily, for a Lord who had redeemed them, under the guidance of an overseer who had risked everything to secure their freedom. They still served, but the nature of that service was fundamentally changed from evil to good.

Also, this final act of rearing the tabernacle would complete Moses’s responsibility to see that all was done as the Lord has instructed. He had already confirmed that the parts were made correctly on an individual basis, now he would verify that they were put together correctly also. After that, direct responsibility could be handed over to the priests.

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 40:12-16

12 And thou shalt bring Aaron and his sons unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and wash them with water.

13 And thou shalt put upon Aaron the holy garments, and anoint him, and sanctify him; that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office.

14 And thou shalt bring his sons, and clothe them with coats:

15 And thou shalt anoint them, as thou didst anoint their father, that they may minister unto me in the priest’s office: for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations.

16 Thus did Moses: according to all that the Lord commanded him, so did he.

As the final step of preparation, Aaron and his sons would be dressed, anointed, and sanctified. These were the priests that God had chosen, and they had to be prepared in just the same manner as all the other elements of the tabernacle. This suggests that they are as much a part of the place as every altar and curtain. Living vessels for the Lord.

Verse 15 is the first time that we see the word “priesthood” in the KJV Bible, though the Hebrew word that is derived from, כְּהֻנָּה (kehunnah), appeared once before in Exodus 29:9, where it was rendered as “the priest’s office.” At different times, God called different categories of men to bear the priesthood, but always men. This may not actually mean anything, but it interesting to note that nouns are gendered in Hebrew, and “priesthood,” as well as most other abstract nouns, is feminine.

This may simply be a coincidence of linguistics, or perhaps the language was formed around the cosmological perception of the people who used it. Perhaps the abstract and conceptual was seen as the domain of the divine feminine, and the calling of men to it was a deliberate unification of the feminine to the masculine. Perhaps the ancient Hebrew view was that the man represented the concretization of the abstract. That the priesthood had both a feminine and masculine side, feminine in its unseen authority and masculine in the priest that utilized it.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 40:9-11

9 And thou shalt take the anointing oil, and anoint the tabernacle, and all that is therein, and shalt hallow it, and all the vessels thereof: and it shall be holy.

10 And thou shalt anoint the altar of the burnt offering, and all his vessels, and sanctify the altar: and it shall be an altar most holy.

11 And thou shalt anoint the laver and his foot, and sanctify it.

All the different elements of the tabernacle were in place, but before they could be used, they had to be anointed with oil. Every part of it, inside and out, was to be anointed, which is said to be for the sake of “sanctifying” them.

To sanctify something has a dual meaning. It is used both to mean the cleansing and purifying of something, as well as to choose and set apart something for a holy purpose. Presumably both of those meanings are meant here. Every time the tabernacle was set up, they would be anointed to cleanse them of the world’s detritus, and to consecrate them once again to the service of the Lord.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 40:6-8

6 And thou shalt set the altar of the burnt offering before the door of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation.

7 And thou shalt set the laver between the tent of the congregation and the altar, and shalt put water therein.

8 And thou shalt set up the court round about, and hang up the hanging at the court gate.

We now read the order in which the courtyard is to be erected. First the sacrificial altar, then the washing basin, and finally the courtyard walls and gate. With that, all of the elements would be properly in place, though not yet anointed and ready for use.

One thing that stands out to me is that the sacrificial altar is to be placed in line with the door of the tabernacle. Not off to one side, or at a bit of an angle, but directly on the path to it. The symbolism clearly being that there is no approaching the sacred inner places without first making a sacrifice. It might seem easier if we could obtain God’s full glory before we gave up our beasts of the flesh that hold us back, but that simply isn’t how it works. The offering must come first, the presence of God must come after. For this very reason, God remains inaccessible to any who try to reverse the order and say they will only make sacrifice after they first witness God’s presence.

But for those that do make offering, the washing presents itself next. The washing comes because of the sacrifice. We are made holy and clean, and now we are ready to enter God’s glory. That is the order, and it cannot be short-circuited or rearranged. We come by that path, or we don’t come at all.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 40:2-5

2 On the first day of the first month shalt thou set up the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation.

3 And thou shalt put therein the ark of the testimony, and cover the ark with the veil.

4 And thou shalt bring in the table, and set in order the things that are to be set in order upon it; and thou shalt bring in the candlestick, and light the lamps thereof.

5 And thou shalt set the altar of gold for the incense before the ark of the testimony, and put the hanging of the door to the tabernacle.

The tabernacle was to be constructed from the inside out. First the tabernacle and all of its elements would be placed, and then the elements of the courtyard and its walls. Thus, the first step is to erect the tabernacle with its pillars and walls and curtains and coverings of linen and skin. Apparently, though, the curtain door was not yet to be added. Next came the Ark of the Testimony in the most holy place, and on the other side of the inner veil the table of shewbread, the menorah, and the incense altar. Now that the interior was complete, the curtain door was added, and the tabernacle portion was complete.

When we first read about the structure of the tabernacle with its bones of wood and its outer coverings of hair and skin, it seemed clear to me that it was meant to represent a person’s body. It is a symbol for each of us individually. With that in mind, the bringing in of the spiritual artifacts represents the introduction of spirituality to our own person. First comes in the Ark of the Covenant, which represents the presence of God within us, the spark of divinity that all of us are born with. The table of shewbread is spiritual nourishment, the menorah is spiritual light, and the incense altar is our continual prayers. We must maintain in our dead flesh a living spirit, nourishing it by light and prayer, and we must set a door before us that keeps the material out so that the inner spiritual is uncorrupted.