The Tabernacle Cost A Fortune

Detailed Accounting of Gold, Silver, and Bronze

Exodus 38:24-31:

This is an account of how much gold, silver, and bronze was used in the construction of the Tabernacle and the specific aspects each one was applied to.

Thoughts on the Passage

In verse 24, we read that over 29 talents of gold were used. Some estimate each talent to be worth 32 kilograms. That equates to a total of about 2030 pounds (or 32,480 ounces) as a minimum. At today’s value for gold ($1,333.15 U.S. per ounce), that’s a value of $43.3 Million U.S. today.  And that’s just the gold.

When it came to silver, Robert Jamieson cites Hewlett, and writes, “It may seem difficult to imagine how the Israelites should be possessed of so much wealth in the desert; but it should be remembered that they were enriched first by the spoils of the Egyptians, and afterwards by those of the Amalekites. Besides, it is highly probable that during their sojourn they traded with the neighboring nations who bordered on the wilderness.”  Although, we are not sure exactly what it is that they traded in exchange for any silver.

Matthew Henry tells us that while the gold came from a “free-will offering”, the silver was collected via a tax or levy. Every man was assessed a certain amount (half a shekel). It was from this that they made the sockets into which the boards of the tabernacle were let, and on which they rested, to form the foundation of the Tabernacle.

So, the combination of a free-will offering and a tax levy indicates, for Henry, that either way is acceptable to cover expenses of the mission or church today, provided that neither is done with partiality.

The less valuable brass was used not only for the brazen altar but for the sockets of the court. Henry points out that in other tents these were likely made of wood, but here in the Tabernacle, brass was used.  Interestingly Isaiah 60:17 referring to the glory of Israel in the Kingdom, makes a reference to substituting brass for wood.  (Look it up.)

There is no doubt that the Israelites were very liberal in their giving to the construction of the Tabernacle. They set an early example for churches and congregations that would make an impact on people – both inside and outside the structure itself.

We could well ask ourselves how liberal we are with our giving to the Lord’s work and service?  While we may spend millions on our homes and cars and trips and invest heavily in our businesses, are we just as prone to contribute liberally ‘with a joyful heart’ to the work and worship of God?  

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Moses: "I Don't Make the Rules, God Does."

Godly Leaders Are Willing To Die For Their People

Exodus 32:30-35: And it came about on the next day that Moses said to the people, “You yourselves have committed a great sin; and now I am going up to the Lord, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” Then Moses returned to the Lord, and said, “Alas, this people has committed a great sin, and they have made a god of gold for themselves. But now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin – and if not, please blot me out from Thy book which Thou has written!” And the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.  But go now, lead the people where I told you.  Behold, My angel shall go before you; nevertheless in the day when I punish, I will punish them for their sin.” Then the Lord smote the people, because of what they did with the calf which Aaron had made.

Three thousand Israelites had just been killed in the camp and Moses had instructed the Levites to dedicate themselves to the Lord in order to gain a greater blessing. That is something we need to notice here – greater blessings come with greater dedication to God. When you think about it, there’s no other just way to have it. Sometimes it seems that God blesses those that are not dedicated to Him more than He does those that are. Two things to keep in mind: First, we don’t have the inside scoop on who really is or is not sincerely and deeply dedicated to God. Second, we may often mistake what appear to be temporal advantages in life as God’s blessings when in actual fact they may simply be things that He allows in the lives of others for His own reasons. I always used to wonder why several of my cousins always had more than me when I knew that they dropped out of school at the earliest legal age and also were not followers of Christ. Fast forward forty years later and I know that I would never change my blessings in life (especially in my loving family) with any one of them. But it took me a while to accept what I thought was unfair treatment.  Do not let yourself fall into that trap.

So it was that Moses now “on the next day” knew he had more work to do with respect to this situation. He could have stopped worrying about it ‘yesterday’ but he didn’t.  He knew that a leader’s job was to be thorough in the execution of the strategy. So Moses went to those who managed to survive the previous day’s massacre (for that is what it was) and told them outright that they weren’t off the hook – they too, regardless of not being killed the day before, were still guilty of having committed a great sin before God.

And now Moses puts his own life at risk. He first tells the people that he is going up to the Lord again with the intention of personally making an atonement for their sin. And that is exactly what he did. He went the extra metaphorical and to a point, literal, mile up the mountain, to seek forgiveness for someone else’s sin. That’s what true leaders do.

Look at how he approaches God this time. First, he tells God what He already knew. The people had committed a great sin, he admitted. Sometimes it is important to verbally confess what we have done and even to confess what our family has done. We have the right to go before God on our behalf and also on their behalf. Unfortunately, we do not avail ourselves of that as often as we can or should.

And then, that short three-letter word used often in Scripture to indicate what God did or what, as in this case, He could do if He wanted to shows up in the text.  Moses says to God, “But You can forgive their sin.” Moses understood clearly and believed what many deny today – God can indeed forgive our sins.  Have you gone to God lately on behalf of your loved ones?

And look at what else he said. “God, if you don’t forgive them (note: not if you can’t, but if you don’t), then please blot me out of your book of life.”  Wow. That’s a leader for you. Moses was basically saying he didn’t need the benefits and the perks if his people could not participate in them. How many CEO’s do you know that actually say that to their Chairman of the Board? That takes guts and Moses certainly had that. But I believe that everything he said to God at this time, he sincerely did so because he truly not only understood his people, but also deeply cared for them. At the same time, he realized that sin had been committed and only God could forgive it.  Moses could not do it, the Levite priests could not do it. Only God can forgive the sins of people.

[And yes, there is a book of life and God does write in it.  This is not the book of the law, but rather a place where God records those that He grants salvation to. We hear about this book again in Psalms, Daniel, and Malachi in the Old Testament.  In the New Testament, we read about it in Philippians 4:3, and again in the last book of the Bible, Revelations in chapter 3, verse 5.]

So how does God react to Moses’ plea on behalf of his people and his willingness to give up having his name in the book of life? God basically says, “Look it is not your call as to who I keep in the book and who I take out. I will only blot out those who have ‘sinned against Me.’” Moses was nicely being told he was going beyond his jurisdiction as leader as admirable as his desire may have been. What’s the lesson for us? As a father and a grandfather, I believe it is simply this: We have a responsibility to bring our sins before the Lord, as well as those of our family, and to ask Him to forgive them. We may also want to convey to Him how important that is to us, but we overstep our bounds when we start negotiating about who gets saved and who does not – that is strictly God’s domain. [For me, it is not unlike my position on abortion or euthanasia – we are not here to replace God’s sole authority in those matters.]

And lovingly, God does not punish Moses for his efforts, but instead God points him to his continued responsibility – “go now, do your job, lead the people how and where I told/tell you to lead them”. And furthermore, God sends His angel to go before Moses as He sends His angels to go before us when we are following His instructions and calling. That is incredible reassurance from the Commander in Chief.

At this point God distinguishes between Moses and those that committed the great sin against Him. He says, “nevertheless there will come a day when I choose to do my punishing in this regard, then they will be punished for their sin.”

Some versions of the text talk about God “plaguing” the people somehow as compared to fully “smiting” them at a later date.  Which account you adopt will depend on whether you see God doing this right away or in His own good time. Robert Jamieson says about this last verse, “No immediate judgments were inflicted, but this early lapse into idolatry was always mentioned as an aggravation of their subsequent apostasies.”

Finally, we turn to Matthew Henry, on this troublesome last verse, who writes,

For the present, the Lord plagued the people, probably by the pestilence, or some other infectious disease, which was a messenger of God's wrath, and an earnest of worse. Aaron made the calf, and yet it is said the people made it, because they worshipped it. Deos qui rogat, ille facit-He who asks for gods makes them. Aaron was not plagued, but the people; for his was a sin of infirmity, theirs a presumptuous sin, between which there is a great difference, not always discernable to us, but evident to God, whose judgment therefore, we are sure, is according to truth. Thus Moses prevailed for a reprieve and a mitigation of the punishment, but could not wholly turn away the wrath of God. This (some think) bespeaks the inability of the law of Moses to reconcile men to God and to perfect our peace with him, which was reserved for Christ to do, in whom alone it is that God so pardons sin as to remember it no more.

I will leave to you to ponder on what you believe happened. What we do know is that people were not immediately smitten right after this and that indeed the Israelites had their difficulties in the wilderness for years to come. And some would say, still do. The lesson for us is not to take lightly the fact that sin against God has to be addressed – either forgiven through Christ or punished. As one police officer of New York City implies in the book Humans of New York, “I don’t make the rules, I just have to communicate them to those that break them and see that justice is done. I don’t like them any more than you do. Don’t take it personally.” Perhaps, someone else said it better when they said, “Please, don’t shoot the messenger.”

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God's Instructions Include Not Only What, But How

The Mercy Seat and The Two Cherubs

 

Exodus 25:17-21: “And you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and one and a half cubits wide. And you shall make two cherubim of gold, make them of hammered work at the two ends of the mercy seat. And make one cherub at one end and one cherub at the other end; you shall make the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat at its two ends. And the cherubim shall have their wings spread upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings and facing one another; the faces of the cherubim are to be turned toward the mercy seat. And you shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony which I shall give to you.”

To my knowledge there is only one “mercy seat” and thus its definition is singular.  Simply put, the mercy seat is physically the gold lid that sits on top of the Ark of the Covenant or Testimony that God told the Israelites to build. But its intended meaning goes much deeper.

To begin with, it would be part of the two gold winged angelic beings that God’s instructions included – one at each end of the lid, each facing inward and thus each other – and together with the lid itself, all made of one piece of crafted or hammered gold.  Hammered gold results from the process of beating gold into an extremely thin unbroken sheet for use in gilding.  The modern process of gilding involves the application of different decorative techniques with a fine gold leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone, or metal to give them a thin coating of gold. It is of note here that when God gives us instructions of what He wants, He also tells us how He wants it done.

In particular, the two cherubim (or angelic beings) were to have their wings spread upward and covering the mercy seat.  Thus we assume that in order for the seat to be covered, the tips of the wings of the cherubim must touch.  The eyes of the cherubim were to be looking or focused on the main part of the mercy seat – the part of the lid in the middle between them.

However, the mercy seat is also where God comes in a formal sense and dwells among His people in the Old Testament.  Later, we learn it becomes critical in the Day of Atonement – it is on the mercy seat that the sacrificial blood is poured.  Put another way, it represents the locale of where our sins are covered, when in fact, later in the New Testament, Christ’s blood is shed for us in the ultimate act of atonement (payment of the penalty) on our behalf.

And then in our current passage, once again, God repeats His instructions of what is to go inside the ark – He wanted the law, the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments to be placed inside (as given to Moses already).  But here we have a bit of a snag in the text for God tells them to “put (in) the testimony which I shall give to you.”  How do we explain the future tense here?

The perplexity is best explained by having a broader definition of ‘testimony’ to include all of God’s laws that He gave and was to continue giving to the Israelites with respect to how they should live and worship.  The testimony in essence becomes God continued “communication” with His people regarding formal instructions that they are to observe and carry out.  Thus, on this day when He was giving these instructions to Moses for the people, while He had already given them the Decalogue or Ten Commandments, He knew there were still more instructions that He would give the people in the near future.  (Verse 22 of this chapter that follows this passage actually speaks of this. And once again, we find that if we sincerely want to allow Scripture to answer the questions that Scripture itself raises, it will.)

I believe that for us today, God’s instructions collectively for His people have been given.  His communication to His Body as a group has been completed. The finished work of Christ when He died for us on the Cross resulted in a completed work of salvation.  That is not to say that He cannot or will not speak to His people again as a group in the future, but I believe that will be after the return of Christ to the earth in what we refer to as “the second coming”.  For now, what remains is for each of us, individually, to heed God’s specific instructions to us – as we pursue our personal relationship with Him.  And in attempting to carry out those particular instructions to each of us, it is of paramount importance that we react the same way as the Israelites were intended to react – following all the specifications with respect to both the what and the how.

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God's Instructions Today Take Tomorrow Into Account

The Wooden Chest

Exodus 25:10-16: “And they shall construct an ark of acacia wood two and a half cubits long, and one and a half cubits wide, and one and a half cubits high.  And you shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and you shall make a gold molding around it.  And you shall cast four gold rings for it, and fasten them on its four feet, and two rings shall be on one side of it and two rings on the other side of it.  And you shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold.  And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, to carry the ark with them.  The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be removed from it.  And you shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give you.”

This is the beginning of the very detailed instructions that God gives to Moses for the people with respect to the construction of an “ark”. Most of us immediately think of Noah’s Ark when we hear this word. However, the word has a much simpler meaning, that of a chest in which things are protected. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines it as a “large strong box, typically made of wood and used for storage or shipping” of something valuable. The Dictionary gives a “medicine chest” as an example.  And that definition fits both Noah’s Ark and this Ark (which later becomes known as the ‘ark of the Covenant’ or the ‘ark of the Testimony’). Both were used to store, or protect, and to transport or ship their valuable contents.  In the case of Noah, it was two of every living creature and in the case of Ark of the children of Israel it was God’s testimony or laws.

Not only was this chest to be constructed precisely to specifications in size, but also it was not to be any cheap old box that was just made-to-measure with respect to magnitude. It was to be overlaid with pure gold, inside and out, with four large gold rings through which carrying poles would be inserted.  God knew that the Ark would eventually have to be moved about and carried.  He knew how many people it would take to carry it and how much they could reasonably lift. And He provided for that.

God also instructed that once the carrying poles were inserted, they were not to be removed. This was in case the priests would have to move the ark quickly during the long life of the Israelites that was still before them. God had that in mind too.

Here’s the point: when God gives us instructions today – He has the unmatchable advantage of knowing exactly what will happen and what we will need tomorrow. But as it was with Children of Israel who took so long to be able to rely on that God with that knowledge, so it is with us.

This short passage ends with God instructing that “His testimony” be put into the ark that the Israelites were to build.  This word “testimony” is used once earlier in Scripture, in Exodus 16:34 and in both cases it refers to the “Decalogue” or the Ten Commandments.  However, since the Ten Commandments were not given to Moses until Exodus 20, one could well ask “What is going on here?”  We are left with two options.  Either the Torah or Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) is ‘anachronistic’ here – that is, this is one place the account is out of chronological order.  Or (and this is the option I prefer given all else that is taking place in order), Exodus 16:34 refers to what Aaron did some time after the Decalogue was given in Exodus 20 and the author was just telling us about it here when he was writing the account.  May I suggest, and perhaps somewhat tongue in cheek, that Author Moses had a bit of God’s own personality when it came to time for elsewhere in Scripture we read, “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night.” (Psalm 90:4).

 

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In Remembrance of God’s Delivery -- Exodus 16:31-36:

The house of Israel named it manna, and it was like coriander seed, white, and its taste was like wafers with honey. Then Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded, ‘Let an omerful of it be kept throughout your generations, that they may see the bread that I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar and put an omerful of manna in it, and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations.” As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the Testimony, to be kept. The sons of Israel ate the manna forty years, until they came to an inhabited land; they ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. (Now an omer is a tenth of an ephah.)
 

The Israelites named their daily provision sent by God from heaven for their physical nurturing “manna”.  The writer tells us it was white in color, like coriander seed in appearance, and tasted like wafers dabbed in honey.  Wikipedia gives us this picture of coriander fruits:

Only of course it was all white in color.

And God also made arrangements for the Israelites to remember His provision to them.  He told Moses that they were to keep an ‘omer’ of this manna forever.  He wanted it as an exhibit to those that came afterwards, so that this part of history – and especially the fact that it was God who delivered them from slavery in Egypt and fed them daily in the wilderness -- is always remembered.

To accomplish this, Moses told Aaron, his brother, to take a jar, and fill it with manna.  (In Hebrews 9:4 of the New Testament we are told it was a jar of gold.)  As Christians today we have the opportunity to have the “Bread of Heaven” of which this manna was only typical (John 6:32).  I pray we treasure this Bread of Life in the same way.

Aaron was to put one omerful of manna in the jar.  Strong’s Lexicon tells us an omer is a dry measure of 1/10 of an ephah (about 2 litres).  Strong also defines an ephah as a dry measure of quantity about 9 imperial gallons (which is 40 litres).  There seems to be some contradiction between the first definition of an omer (2 litres or 1/10 of an ephah) and this definition of an ephah (40, rather than 20 litres).  Rabbinical writings give sizes of one-half this amount to comply with the definition of an omer.  In any case, Aaron did just that and he placed the jar, the text says, before the Testimony.

Matthew Henry translates the word “Testimony” here as simply the ark.  And this seems indeed to support the meaning given to this account in Hebrews 9:4.

We note that this manna was provided for forty years right up until the Israelites came to the land of Canaan.  While God is outside time, and can do anything by just uttering the appropriate command, we as His children need to be mindful neither to be in a hurry nor to think He is being tardy.  Remember when Jesus’ friend Lazarus died, people felt Jesus was four days late going to see his body.  But our Lord was right on time for what He wanted to accomplish through that event.  Both He and us are in a relationship that takes time, as we know it, so that His full plan for us to become more like Him will be fulfilled.

One of the greatest downfalls of many a leader is haste, often manifested with just plain impatience.  God made the children of Israel wander in the desert for forty years.  But the good news is He was there and He fed them daily.

Are you in the desert today because God wants you to learn something or to develop a characteristic that will be useful for His glory in the rest of your life?  If so, make sure you get your daily dose of Manna.  Make sure you are aware that God is there with you and He is providing for you.  And then make sure to remember it years later when you have reached your Canaan.

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[Are you looking for a speaker at your church, your club, school, or organization? Ken is available to preach, teach, challenge, and/or motivate. Please contact us.]

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Some Say Gold, but Many Say Silver; Here's another reason for Silver and it has to do with Water

A Canadian University has taken a page out of the ancient Greeks and Romans' book.  They used to keep their water in silver jugs -- for good reason. Now, the team at this university has come up with a very helpful way to produce clean water in emergencies such as earthquakes, floods, etc. Take a look and share this blog with others who may be interested.

Producing Clean Water in an Emergency

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