Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Exodus 25:40
And look that thou make [them] after their pattern, which was showed thee in the mount.
40. Cf. v. 9: also Num 8:4; and Act 7:44.
In Solomon’s Temple there were ten golden candlesticks, five standing on each side of the Holy place, in front of the adyton (1Ki 7:49; cf. Jer 52:19): in the post-exilic Temple there was only a single candlestick ( 1Ma 1:21 ; 1Ma 4:49 ). It is this which was taken from the Herodian Temple by the Romans, and is represented on the famous Arch of Titus. In the Temple at Shiloh there was only a single lamp (1Sa 3:3).
The Ark
It is impossible to give here a history of the Ark; but a few words may be permitted, respecting the religious ideas associated with it, and opinions as to its possible origin.
The oldest name of the ark was the ‘ark of Jehovah,’ Jos 3:13 &c. (or ‘of God,’ 1Sa 3:3 &c.), or, less frequently, ‘the ark’ alone (Num 10:35 al.): the Deut. expression (see p. 193) is ‘the ark of the covenant’ (with or without ‘of Jehovah’ added): P’s characteristic expression is the ‘ark of the testimony’ (13 times: see on Exo 25:16; Exo 25:22). Both these latter terms are used with allusion to the tables inscribed with the Decalogue, which, as in our extant sources (see however on Exo 34:3) we first learn from Deu 10:2; Deu 10:5, were contained in it. In itself the ‘ark’ is similar in principle to the sacred chests in which many other ancient nations, as the Egyptians, Etruscans, Greeks, kept images, or other sacred objects, and sometimes also carried them in processions. Now it is noticeable that in nearly all the pre-Deuteronomic references, the ark which in these passages ‘must be thought of as a simple chest, very different from the gold-covered shrine of P, with its’ massive golden ‘mercy-seat, and over-arching cherubim’ (Kennedy) appears as much more than a mere receptacle of two inscribed stones; it is, in fact, in a very special sense, a symbol and pledge of Jehovah’s presence; and it is even spoken of as if He were actually present in it, so that wherever the ark was, Jehovah was there with it. Especially in war is it thus regarded as the material vehicle or accompaniment of Jehovah’s presence. In the ancient verses preserved in Num 10:35 f. originally, to judge from the terms used, the prayer with which the Ark was sent forth to battle, and the welcome with which its return was greeted, ‘Arise, O Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered, Let them that hate thee flee before thee,’ and ‘Return, O Jehovah, to the myriads of Israel’s clans,’ Jehovah is addressed as though He were present in the ark, and moved with it. The case is similar in 1Sa 4:3, where the Hebrew sheikhs say, ‘Let us fetch the ark of Jehovah from Shiloh, that it may come and save us,’ and when it arrives, the Philistines exclaim ( v. 7), ‘God is come into the camp’; and in Exo 6:19, where, after the ark has been brought back, and some of the men of Bethshemesh are smitten, the others exclaim, ‘Who is able to stand before Jehovah this holy God?’ So in 2Sa 6:5 ff. David and the Israelites, accompanying the ark with dancing and music, are described as playing ‘before Jehovah’ ( vv. 5, 21); and in Jos 7:6-9 the Israelites fall down before the ark and pray to Him. It is also evidently as the pledge of Jehovah’s presence and effectual help, that in 2Sa 11:11 the ark is taken with the host on a campaign, and that in 2Sa 15:24 f. Zadok takes it with David, when he leaves Jerusalem (though the king magnanimously sends it back): in Num 14:44, on the contrary, its absence from the host (which is tantamount to Jehovah’s absence, v. 42) is the cause of defeat. Other ancient nations took images of their gods into battle (2Sa 5:21: Rel. Sem. 37, citing Polyb. vii. 9, Diod. xx. 65 [the Carthaginians’ ‘sacred tent’]): the Israelites had a custom which was the same in principle; but their palladium was the image-less ark.
These passages, which shew that in early Israel the ark was, in a very real sense, identified with the presence of Jehovah, are not adequately explained if the only purpose of the ark was to form a receptacle for the two tables of stone. How the former conception of the ark arose, the extant narratives do not state: they describe the ark as made purely to receive the tables of stone; and in P Jehovah speaks not from the ark itself, but from between the cherubim upon it. We are therefore reduced to conjecture. When we remember that Jacob speaks of the stone at Bethel as being itself the ‘house,’ or abode, of God (Gen 28:22), one supposition that suggests itself is that in very remote times the ark may have sheltered a sacred stone, regarded by the primitive Israelites as the abode of a deity (so Benz. Arch. 1 369 [2312 a very different view]; B.; in greater detail, Cheyne, EB. i. 307 f.), but ‘transformed’ ultimately, ‘in reverent Hebrew thought “into a perfect written embodiment of the fundamental demands of Israel’s righteous God” ’ (McNeile, p. 163, without, however, definitely accepting this view). Such conjectures are not illegitimate: for our accounts of the beginnings of Israel’s religion, it must be borne in mind, are both imperfect in themselves, and spring from a time when higher and more spiritual ideas were current than had once been the case. Another view, which admits of being more easily accommodated to Exo 33:1-7, is that the ark contained a stone, or stones, taken from the sacred ‘mount of God,’ Horeb, which was regarded as an assurance of the protecting presence of Jehovah (whose abode was on Sinai, Exo 19:4) after they left it (Moore, EB. i. 2155): and there are independent reasons for thinking (see on Exo 33:6) that the ark was originally conceived as supplying some kind of visible substitute for Jehovah’s personal presence. Or, thirdly, Kennedy may be right ( Samuel, in the Century Bible, p. 324) in seeing in the ark an embodiment of that ‘Presence of Jehovah,’ which it is promised shall accompany Israel to Canaan (Exo 33:14), as, not indeed Jehovah Himself, but His sufficient representative (cf. DB. i. 150 f.).
It is common to all these theories to regard the ark as not originally intended to receive the tables of the Decalogue: it is not probable, it is argued, that laws of fundamental importance, intended to be observed by all, should be placed where they could not be seen. The question cannot be here pursued further; and it must suffice to refer the reader, for fuller discussion, to Kennedy, DB. i. s.v., and Samuel, p. 321 ff.; Kautzsch, DB. v. 628 f., and McNeile, p. 161 ff. Jehovah’s presence, it is clear, was regarded as in some way ‘objectively attached to the ark’: but the historical origin of this idea our extant data do not enable us certainly to determine. And this is why we are driven to conjecture. It may only be worth while to add that in Jer 3:16 the time is looked forward to, by the spiritually-minded prophet, when no such material symbol of Jehovah’s presence will be needed; and the ark, having served its purpose through many centuries, will be neither ‘remembered, nor missed (RVm.), nor made again.’
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Exo 25:40
Their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount.
Heavens teaching on earths duties
I. That nothing is too trivial for God to notice.
II. That we should speak to God about ordinary work, even in our seasons of highest spiritual communion.
III. That even slight deviations from Gods directions are forbidden.
IV. That what we are called upon to do has far more depending upon it than we suppose. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)
Purpose in life; a lesson to the young
I. The necessity of a deliberate purpose in life. When an architect, or builder, or engineer, undertakes the construction of a house, the first thing he does is to get perfect his plans, and to be sure they are correct, so that he knows well what the future house, or bridge, or railway, will be like. If he went at his work in a haphazard manner, it would end in failure and disappointment. So with life.
II. This purpose of life should be formed on the model shown us by God.
1. The highest life is the holiest life, for it is nearest to the model set us by God.
2. The plan by which we are to mould our temporal concerns is already given us. Look at Mount Sinai for laws to obey; at the Mount of Olives for loving directions: at the Mount of Transfiguration for anticipation, hope of glory; at Mount Calvary for forgiven sin. (Homilist.)
The pattern in the mount
I. Moses did his work from a plan, and did not get his plan from his work. Reality is prior to the show of itself. There are no planless seeds. A far-reaching plan is the best one. Calculation is better than caprice. We are wiser in the long reach of thought than in the short reach. We are lost in the woods because we have no room for a long look. You say life is short. Better live on the short arc of a long circle than describe a little circle with the same line. Immediate results are meagre results. Plan solidifies. Power is measurable by purpose. Shiftlessness is a name for aimlessness. To-morrow depends on to-day, but to-day depends on to-morrow also. Past and present sustain each other. Plan gives moral safeguard. Adam fell because he had nothing to do, and the first act in the redemptive scheme was to set him to work. Satan recruits his ranks from the vagrants. The apostles were working men. The drifting boat drifts down stream. Young aimlessness is the beginning of old iniquity. Employment is a subsidiary means of conversion. Character, purpose and apprenticeship are not far apart.
II. Moses brought down his pattern from the mount. There is a celestial way of doing earthly things. Earthly success is a quotation from overhead. Our ideals are from patterns in the mount. There is something in them we never put into them. Whence are our ideals? We have never seen a perfect thing. What do we mean by using the word? We must go with Moses to the mount for the answer. In nothing do men have so much faith as in their ideals, and there is nothing which it is so hard to explain. We do not make laws, but find them. We cannot enact truth any more than gravity. There may be a myth about Sinai, but it is one we were bound to invent if it never was reality. The problem of life is to make the ideal real. Once it was done in Galilee. The two meet in Jesus. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
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Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 40. And look that thou make, c.] This verse should be understood as an order to Moses after the tabernacle, c., had been described to him as if he had said: “When thou comest to make all the things that I have already described to thee, with the other matters of which I shall afterwards treat, see that thou make every thing according to the pattern which thou didst see in the mount.” The Septuagint have it, according to the TYPE-form or fashion, which was shown thee. It appears to me that St. Paul had this command particularly in view when he gave that to his son Timothy which we find in the second epistle, 2Ti 1:13: , ‘ . “Hold fast the FORM of sound words which thou hast heard of me.” The tabernacle was a type of the Church of God; that Church is built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone, Eph 2:20-22: the doctrines, therefore, delivered by the prophets, Jesus Christ, and his apostles, are essential to the constitution of this church. As God, therefore, gave the plan or form according to which the tabernacle must be constructed, so he gives the doctrines according to which the Christian Church is to be modelled; and apostles, and subordinate builders, are to have and hold fast that FORM of sound words, and construct this heavenly building according to that form or pattern which has come through the express revelation of God.
IN different parts of this work we have had occasion to remark that the heathens borrowed their best things from Divine revelation, both as it refers to what was pure in their doctrines, and significant in their religious rites. Indeed, they seem in many cases to have studied the closest imitation possible, consistent with the adaptation of all to their preposterous and idolatrous worship. They had their IAO or JOVE, in imitation of the true JEHOVAH; and from different attributes of the Divine Nature they formed an innumerable group of gods and goddesses. They had also their temples in imitation of the temple of God; and in these they had their holy and more holy places, in imitation of the courts of the Lord’s house. The heathen temples consisted of several parts or divisions:
1. The area or porch;
2. The or temple, similar to the nave of our churches;
3. The adytum or holy place, called also penetrale and sacrarium; and,
4. The or the inner temple, the most secret recess, where they had their mysteria, and which answered to the holy of holies in the tabernacle.
And as there is no evidence whatever that there was any temple among the heathens prior to the tabernacle, it is reasonable to conclude that it served as a model for all that they afterwards built. They had even their portable temples, to imitate the tabernacle; and the shrines for Diana, mentioned Ac 19:24, were of this kind. They had even their arks or sacred coffers, where they kept their most holy things, and the mysterious emblems of their religion; together with candlesticks or lamps, to illuminate their temples, which had few windows, to imitate the golden candlestick in the Mosaic tabernacle. They had even their processions, in imitation of the carrying about of the ark in the wilderness, accompanied by such ceremonies as sufficiently show, to an unprejudiced mind, that they borrowed them from this sacred original. Dr. Dodd has a good note on this subject, which I shall take the liberty to extract.
Speaking of the ark, he says, “We meet with imitations of this Divinely instituted emblem among several heathen nations. Thus Tacitus, De Moribus Germanorum, cap. 40, informs us that the inhabitants of the north of Germany, our Saxon ancestors, in general worshipped Herthum or Hertham, i.e., the mother earth: Hertham being plainly derived from arets, earth, and am, mother: and they believed her to interpose in the affairs of men, and to visit nations: that to her, in a sacred grove in a certain island of the ocean, a vehicle covered with a vestment was consecrated, and allowed to be touched by the priests only, (compare 2Sa 6:6-7; 1Ch 13:9-10), who perceived when the goddess entered into her secret place, penetrale, and with profound veneration attended her vehicle, which was drawn by cows; see 1Sa 6:7-10. While the goddess was on her progress, days of rejoicing were kept in every place which she vouchsafed to visit; they engaged in no war, they handled no weapons; peace and quietness were then only known, only relished, till the same priest reconducted the goddess to her temple. Then the vehicle and vestment, and, if you can believe it, the goddess herself, were washed in a sacred lake.”
Apuleius, De Aur. Asin., lib. ii., describing a solemn idolatrous procession, after the Egyptian mode, says, “A chest, or ark, was carried by another, containing their secret things, entirely concealing the mysteries of religion.”
And Plutarch, in his treatise De Iside, c., describing the rites of Osiris, says, “On the tenth day of the month, at night, they go down to the sea and the stolists, together with the priest, carry forth the sacred chest, in which is a small boat or vessel of gold.”
Pausanius likewise testifies, lib. vii., c. 19, that the ancient Trojans had a sacred ark, wherein was the image of BACCHUS, made by Vulcan, which had been given to Dardanus by Jupiter. As the ark was deposited in the holy of holies, so the heathens had in the inmost part of their temples an adytum or penetrale, to which none had access but the priests. And it is remarkable that, among the Mexicans, Vitzliputzli, their supreme god, was represented under a human shape, sitting on a throne, supported by an azure globe which they called heaven; four poles or sticks came out from two sides of this globe, at the end of which serpents’ heads were carved, the whole making a litter which the priests carried on their shoulders whenever the idol was shown in public.-Religious Ceremonies, vol. iii., p. 146.
Calmet remarks that the ancients used to dedicate candlesticks in the temples of their gods, bearing a great number of lamps.
Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxiv., c. 3, mentions one made in the form of a tree, with lamps in the likeness of apples, which Alexander the Great consecrated in the temple of Apollo.
And Athenaeus, lib. xv., c. 19, 20, mentions one that supported three hundred and sixty-five lamps, which Dionysius the younger, king of Syracuse, dedicated in the Prytaneum at Athens. As the Egyptians, according to the testimony of Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom., lib. i., were the first who used lamps in their temples, they probably borrowed the use from the golden candlestick in the tabernacle and temple.
From the solemn and very particular charge, Look that thou make them after their pattern, which was showed thee in the mount, it appears plainly that God showed Moses a model of the tabernacle and all its furniture; and to receive instructions relative to this was one part of his employment while on the mount forty days with God. As God designed that this building, and all that belonged to it, should be patterns or representations of good things to come, it was indispensably necessary that Moses should receive a model and specification of the whole, according to which he might direct the different artificers in their constructing the work.
1. We may observe that the whole tabernacle and its furniture resembled a dwelling-house and its furniture.
2. That this tabernacle was the house of God, not merely for the performance of his worship, but for his residence.
3. That God had promised to dwell among this people, and this was the habitation which he appointed for his glory.
4. That the tabernacle, as well as the temple, was a type of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. See Joh 1:14, and Joh 2:19; Joh 2:21.
5. That as the glory of God was manifested between the cherubim, above the mercy-seat, in this tabernacle, so God was in Christ, and in him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
6. As in the tabernacle were found bread, light, &c., probably all these were emblematical of the ample provision made in Christ for the direction, support, and salvation of the soul of man. Of these, and many other things in the law and the prophets, we shall know more when mortality is swallowed up of life.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
40. look that thou make them aftertheir patternThis caution, which is repeated with no smallfrequency in other parts of the narrative, is an evidence of the deepinterest taken by the Divine King in the erection of His palace orsanctuary; and it is impossible to account for the circumstance ofGod’s condescending to such minute details, except on the assumptionthat this tabernacle was to be of a typical character, and eminentlysubservient to the religious instruction and benefit of mankind, byshadowing forth in its leading features the grand truths of theChristian Church.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And look that thou make them,…. Or see that they are made by workmen employed:
after their pattern, which was showed thee in the mount; from whence it appears, that as Moses was showed the model of the tabernacle, so also of the candlestick, and of all its appurtenances, and of every other vessel in it; and he is strictly charged to look carefully and diligently to it, that everything be done exactly according to the model he had a view of, in which everything was particularly described, and nothing was left to the will, humour, and fancy of men.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
40 And look that thou make them. He again inculcates, what we have already seen, that Moses should take care that all things were exactly modeled according to the original or pattern seen in the mount. But it is certain that it is not any mere vision which is here in question, but that the external ornaments of the sanctuary have reference to their spiritual object, as is plain from the explanation of Stephen and the Apostle. Wherefore we need not wonder that Zechariah should say that God would make manifest, and that by certain proof, under the reign of Christ, that it was no empty spectacle which God had set before His people under the Law.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(40) After their pattern.Comp, Exo. 25:9.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 25:40. And look that thou make, &c. Moses was now in the mount with God: this verse therefore should be rendered, in conformity with the 9th, look that thou make them after the pattern which is shewed thee, or, which thou art caused to see, in the mount; which is a literal translation of the Hebrew, and agreeable to all the versions.
REFLECTIONS.1. The tabernacle being without a window, light was necessary; and a most noble candlestick of gold of seven branches, highly ornamented, must be provided. Christ is to his church, and to every individual believer, what this candlestick was to the tabernacle. He shines in the temple of his grace, to shew them the way to the presence and throne of God, who dwelleth between the cherubim. 2. Moses is charged not to deviate from the Divine pattern in any particular. In God’s ordinances we must abide by his express institutions.
A review of the Ark, with the Mercy-seat, considered typically.
First, It was a visible representation of the throne of JEHOVAH, the King of Israel. The law in the midst of the ark signified the equity of his government, or that justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne. The cherubim at both ends of the mercy-seat were emblematical figures of the blessed elect angels that surround his throne, and fly swiftly to execute his high commands. The gold of which they were framed may signify the purity of their essence. The position of their faces towards each other may denote the perfect harmony and mutual love of the innumerable company of angels. The adoring attitude of their bodies may represent the profound veneration they have for their eternal Sovereign. And their flying posture (for their wings were expanded, and touched one another) did surely indicate the expeditious alacrity with which they fulfil the heavenly commissions.
It was also a repository for the tables of the law, which were the instruments of that solemn covenant made between God and that peculiar people; and hence it was a perpetual pledge of the Divine favour and protection to their nation if they fulfilled their obligations to the King of heaven, and a witness against them if they should prove unfaithful. The gold and cedar were fit emblems of the invaluable worth, the spotless purity, and the perpetual duration of the inclosed law.
But especially it may be considered as a figure of Jesus Christ, the promised Messias, whom all the holy things seem to have pointed out with one consent. There will appear to be no contemptible likeness between him and this most holy vessel, if we attend to the following things: the materials of which it was framed; the depositum which it contained; its ornaments; its uses; its virtues; and, lastly, its removals from one place to another till it rested in the temple.
The materials of the ark were shittim-wood and gold. How naturally does this lead us to think upon the constitution of his wonderful Person, whose Humanity is like the shittim-wood, the fruit of the earth, but not subject to corruption; and his Divinity, like the gold in the ark, embosoms his human nature, ennobles, but is not blended with it?The depositum it contained was the second tables of the law; for the first tables were broken before. In Jesus Christ we may see that law which we had broken preserved inviolate, and perfectly fulfilled in the immaculate obedience of his holy life, who says of himself, “I delight to do thy will, O God: yea, thy law is within my heart.” Psa 40:8.Its ornaments were, 1 the border of gold resembling a crown, which reminds us of the Messiah’s regal dignity; and, 2 the Cherubim of glory, which were emblems of those bright and glorious creatures, the angels, who are supported in their happy state by Jesus Christ, as the cherubim were by the ark;who desire to look into the mystery of man’s redemption, and pry into it with the most unwearied attention, the most sublime satisfaction, the highest wonder, and the profoundest adoration;and who are all ministering spirits, ascending and descending upon the Son of man.The uses of the ark were various and important. Here God was enthroned. So God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself.Here the law was covered from all eyes: so Jesus Christ, our true Propitiatory, interposes himself between us and that condemning law, which never fails to curse and kill all who presume to meddle with it, but through his alone merit and through his alone strength; for when the commandment comes without him who fulfilled it, sin will revive, and, like the men of Bethshemish, we shall die.Here oracles were given, and here, said God to Moses, “I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubims, which are upon the ark of the testimony.” Exo 25:22. So Christ is the meeting-place of God with man, in whom he deigns to reveal his gracious will and pleasure to the fallen creature: hence is he called “the Word of God;” Rev 19:13 and is said to declare God the Father, who never was, and never can be, seen by any man. And, lastly, here prayers were presented, and offerings were accepted; for the most holy Israelite durst not approach the presence of Jehovah, but as he sat upon the mercy-seat sprinkled with blood. Nor could the holiest Christian presume to hope for the acceptance of his best duties, were it not for the mercy of God in Christ Jesus.The virtues of the ark were such as these: it searched out a resting-place for Israel in the wilderness. So Christ is to his people the breaker of their way, who goes before them, gives them rest, and prepares for them a place. It opened a passage for the ransomed tribes through the river Jordan. O Jesus, through thee we safely pass through the Jordan of death, and have abundant entrance ministered into the heavenly kingdom, because these waters shall not overflow them who have his presence with them according to his promise! It overturned the walls of Jericho, when carried round them seven days: so shall the walls of Babylon fall, and every high thing that exalts itself against God be cast down by the preaching of his Gospel, who is the Power of God, and the Wisdom of God. It overthrew Dagon of the Philistines in his own temple, maimed his brute image, and utterly abolished that monstrous idol: so shall he that sits in the temple of God, and shews himself that he is God, be destroyed by our spiritual ark, even by the spirit of his mouth, and brightness of his coming. It sanctified the places to which it came in the opinion of Solomon himself; and blessed the house of Obed-edom, where it transiently resided. It is the presence of Christ which makes us holy and happy, and in him we are blessed with every spiritual blessing.The removals of the ark from place to place in the wilderness and in Canaan, till it rested in the temple, (shall we say,) bear some faint resemblance to the humbled Redeemer, going about doing good while he was upon earth, until the everlasting doors of heaven were opened to receive him? Or, was the bearing of the ark about upon the shoulders of the Levites, a figure of the ministers of Christ bearing his name among the Gentiles in all the corners of the world?
It is long since the Babylonians destroyed this glory of Israel; but we have an ark which shall never be destroyed. John saw it in the heavenly temple. The Old Testament ark, like the covenant it confirmed, is vanished away. But the New Testament ark, in which the new covenant stands fast, shall abide for ever in the presence of JEHOVAH. Nor is it death for any one to took into this ark; for the word of life was looked upon with the eyes, and handled with the hands of men. Let it be our one and chief desire that all the days of our life we may abide in his house, behold his beauty, and inquire in his temple.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
REFLECTIONS
GRACIOUS God! help me by thy divine teachings, to behold the wondrous things of thy law, and to admire and adore thy gracious condescension in the appointment of the sanctuary, and the tabernacle, and the mercy, seat, and the ark of the testimony, and the table, and the show-bread. Precious Jesus! may it be my happiness, like Paul, while beholding these shadows of the good things that were then to come, to see that the substance and the body is Christ. Do angels desire to look into those mysteries of the kingdom? Lord, make me earnest to know more and more of thee, and of that love of God which passeth knowledge, that I may be filled with all the fullness of God. And oh! do thou come and frequently commune with me from off thy mercy-seat! There do thou meet me, and speak comfortably to me. Let Jesus be everything to me, the mercy-seat of propitiation, the ark of the divine presence to bless me, the table and bread of life to feast my soul, at which I may sit down here below in sweet communion, until I come to sit down with him forever at the table which is above. Be this my portion, dearest Lord, that I may be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thine house, and drink of the river of thy pleasures. For with thee is the fountain of life.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 25:40 And look that thou make [them] after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount.
Ver. 40. After their pattern, &c. ] The like also was afterwards given in writing, for the building of the temple. 1Ch 28:19 Heb 8:5
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
pattern. See note on Heb 8:5, and compare 1Ch 28:11, 1Ch 28:12, 1Ch 28:18, 1Ch 28:19.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
that thou make: Exo 26:30, Exo 39:42, Exo 39:43, Num 8:4, 1Ch 28:11, 1Ch 28:19, Eze 43:11, Eze 43:12, Act 7:44, Heb 8:5
was showed thee in the mount: Heb. thou wast caused to see in the mount
Reciprocal: Exo 25:9 – the pattern of the tabernacle Exo 27:8 – as it was showed Exo 39:32 – according Jos 22:28 – Behold 1Ch 28:12 – the spirit Eze 43:10 – show
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE PATTERN IN THE MOUNT.
Exo 25:9, Exo 25:40.
Twice over (Exo 25:9, Exo 25:40, and cf. Exo 26:30, Exo 27:8, etc.) Moses was reminded to be careful to make all things after the pattern shown him in the mount. And these words have sometimes been so strained as to convey the meaning that there really exists in heaven a tabernacle and its furniture, the grand original from which the Mosaic copy was derived.
That is plainly not what the Epistle to the Hebrews understands (Heb 8:5). For it urges this admonition as a proof that the old dispensation was a shadow of ours, in which Christ enters into heaven itself, and our consciences are cleansed from dead works to serve the living God. The citation is bound indissolubly with all the demonstration which follows it.
We are not, then, to think of a heavenly tabernacle, exhibited to the material senses of Moses, with which all the details of his own work must be identical.
Rather we are to conceive of an inspiration, an ideal, a vision of spiritual truths, to which all this work in gold and acacia-wood should correspond. It was thus that Socrates told Glaucon, incredulous of his republic, that in heaven there is laid up a pattern, for him that wishes to behold it. Nothing short of this would satisfy the inspired application of the words in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the readers, who were Jewish converts, are asked to recognise in this verse evidence that the light of the new dispensation illuminated the institutions of the old.
Without this pervading sentiment, the most elaborate specifications of weight and measurement, of cup and pomegranate and flower, could never have produced the required effect. An ideal there was, a divinely designed suggestiveness, which must be always present to his superintending vigilance, as once it shone upon his soul in sacred vision or trance; a suggestiveness which might possibly be lost amid correct elaborations, like the soul of a poem or a song, evaporating through a rendering which is correct enough, yet in which the spirit, even if that alone, has been forgotten.
It is surely a striking thing to find this need of a pervading sentiment impressed upon the author of the first piece of religious art that ever was recognised by heaven.
For it is the mysterious all-pervading charm of such a dominant sentiment which marks the impassable difference between the lowliest work of art, and the highest piece of art-manufacture which is only a manufactured article.
And assuredly the recognition of this principle among a people whose ancient history shows but little interest in art, calls for some attention from those who regard the tabernacle itself as a fiction, and its details as elaborated in Babylonia, in the priestly interest. (Kuenen, Relig. of Israel, ii. 148).
The problem of problems for all who deny the divinity of the Old Testament is to explain the curious position which its institutions are consistent in accepting. They rest on the authority of heaven, and yet they are not definitive, but provisional. They are always looking forward to another prophet like their founder, a new covenant better than the present one, a high priest after the order of a Canaanite enthroned at the right hand of Jehovah, a consecration for every pot in the city like that of the vessels in the temple (Deu 18:15; Jer 31:31; Psa 110:1, Psa 110:4; Zec 14:20). And here, “in the priestly interest,” is an avowal that the Divine habitation which they boast of is but the likeness and shadow of some Divine reality concealed. And these strange expectations have proved to be the most fruitful and energetic principles in their religion.
This very presence of the ideal is what will for ever make the highest natures quite certain that the visible universe is no mere resultant of clashing forces without a soul, but the genuine work of a Creator. The universe is charged throughout with the most powerful appeals to all that is artistic and vital within us; so that a cataract is more than water falling noisily, and the silence of midnight more than the absence of disturbance, and a snow mountain more than a storehouse to feed the torrents in summer, being also poems, appeals, revelations, whispers from a spirit, heard in the depth of ours.
Does any one, listening to Beethoven’s funeral march, doubt the utterance of a soul, as distinct from clanging metal and vibrating chords? And the world has in it this mysterious witness to something more than heat and cold, moisture and drought: something which makes the difference between a well-filled granary and a field of grain rippling golden in the breeze. This is not a coercive argument for the hostile logic-monger: it is an appeal for the open heart. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
To fill the tabernacle of Moses with spiritual meaning, the ideal tabernacle was revealed to him in the Mount of God.
Let us apply the same principle to human life. There also harmony and unity, a pervading sense of beauty and of soul, are not to be won by mere obedience to a mandate here and a prohibition there. Like Moses, it is not by labour according to specification that we may erect a shrine for deity. Those parables which tell of obedient toil would be sadly defective, therefore, without those which speak of love and joy, a supper, a Shepherd bearing home His sheep, a prodigal whose dull expectation of hired service is changed for investiture with the best robe and the gold ring, and welcome of dance and music.
How shall our lives be made thus harmonious, a spiritual poem and not a task, a chord vibrating under the musician’s hand? How shall thought and word, desire and deed, become like the blended voices of river and wind and wood, a witness for the divine? Not by mere elaboration of detail (though correctness is a condition of all true art), but by a vision before us of the divine life, the Ideal, the pattern shown to all, and equally to be imitated (strange though it may seem) by peasant and prince, by woman and sage and child.