Exodus 40:9

“And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying” is a line that comes again and again in the books of Moses, and here it opens the last chapter of Exodus. God had given the pattern of the tabernacle in Exodus 25–31, and the people, led by the craftsmen Bezaleel and Aholiab, had made every part of it in Exodus 35–39, all according to what the LORD commanded Moses (Exodus 39:32). With this verse the LORD moves the work from making the parts to raising the house. Israel’s worship begins with God speaking and his people doing what he says.

The name printed “the LORD” is Yᵉhôvâh, God’s own covenant name, which speaks of him as the self-existent and eternal one. He is the God who brought Israel out of Egypt and made a covenant with them at Sinai (Exodus 19), and the command comes from him by name. The verb dâbar is the common Hebrew word for speaking, which Strong’s traces to a root meaning to arrange. Moses, Môsheh, bears a name that means “drawing out”, because he was drawn out of the water, and all through Exodus he is the one to whom the LORD gives his commands for the people.

The command fulfils a promise. The LORD had said, “let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8), and he had promised to dwell among the children of Israel and be their God (Exodus 29:45–46). Israel was brought out of Egypt for this, to worship the God who saved them and to have him in their midst. Once the tabernacle stands, he speaks to Moses from it (Leviticus 1:1), from above the mercy seat (Numbers 7:89).

The ark goes in first, and the furnishing moves from the inside outward. The ark, ʾārôwn, a word that simply means a box or chest, was made of wood overlaid with gold (Exodus 25:10–22). It is called the ark of the testimony because it held the testimony, ʿēdûwth, a word for witness. The testimony was the two tables of stone on which the commandments were written (Exodus 31:18), and they bore witness to the covenant between the LORD and Israel. Scripture also speaks of a pot of manna and Aaron’s rod that budded being kept in the ark. The ark stood for God’s throne among his people, so his law lay at the very centre of the camp.

Then Moses is to “cover the ark with the vail”. The vail, pôreketh, was the sacred screen, a curtain of fine linen in blue, purple and scarlet, worked with cherubim, that divided the holy place from the most holy (Exodus 26:31–33). Behind it the ark was hidden from every eye. The high priest alone passed that curtain, once a year on the Day of Atonement and in the way the LORD laid down (Leviticus 16:2–4), and the service of that day fills Leviticus 16.

The two commands of this verse belong together. Placing the ark says that the LORD is truly present with Israel, as he promised. Covering it says that he is holy and that sinful people come to him by the way he appoints. Isaiah felt the same when he saw the LORD high and lifted up and cried out over his own uncleanness (Isaiah 6:1–5). The letter to the Hebrews describes this whole arrangement and says that the Holy Ghost was showing by it that the way into the holiest was still to be opened (Hebrews 9:1–10).

Three furnishings stand in the holy place, the room in front of the vail, and each is put exactly where God says.

The table, shulchân, is a word for something spread out, a surface on which food is laid. It was made of wood overlaid with gold and stood on the north side. Moses is to “set in order the things that are to be set in order upon it”. The verb is ʻârak, to set in a row or arrange, and the things arranged are named with a related noun, ʻêrek. They are the twelve loaves of shewbread, one for each tribe, laid in two rows of six with frankincense and kept before the LORD continually (Leviticus 24:5–9). The bread spoke of God’s constant provision for Israel, and of Israel always before his face.

The candlestick was the lampstand of beaten gold with its seven lamps. It stood on the south side, opposite the table, and gave the holy place its light. “Light the lamps” uses ʻâlâh, to go up or ascend, so the command is to make the flame go up. The priests were to keep the lamps burning from evening to morning (Exodus 27:21). That steady light spoke of God’s presence, his truth and his guidance for his people.

The altar of gold is an altar, mizbêach, a word that comes from zâbach, to slaughter or sacrifice. This small altar was kept for burning incense, qᵉṭôreth, the fragrant mixture the LORD prescribed (Exodus 30:1–10). It stood “before the ark of the testimony”, which means in the holy place directly in front of the vail, as near to the ark as a priest could come day by day. The smoke of the incense rising there pictured prayer rising to God. David prays, “Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense” (Psalm 141:2), and in John’s vision incense is offered with the prayers of the saints (Revelation 8:3–4). Prayer has its place close to the throne.

Last comes “the hanging of the door to the tabernacle”. A hanging, mâçâk, is a covering or curtain, and this one closed the entrance of the tent, between the court outside and the holy place within. It is a different word from the vail before the ark. The priests passed through it to do their service.

All this care over placement has a reason. Moses was making an earthly copy of heavenly things, and he was told to make everything after the pattern shown him on the mount (Hebrews 8:5). The chapter goes on to say, again and again, that he did it “as the LORD commanded Moses”.

With the structure standing, the LORD commands a second kind of work. Moses is to take “the anointing oil”, the holy oil whose recipe God had given: myrrh, cinnamon, calamus and cassia in olive oil, kept for this use alone and forbidden for common use or imitation (Exodus 30:22–33). To anoint, mâshach, is to rub or smear with oil. Jacob had poured oil on the pillar at Bethel, and in Israel priests (Exodus 29:7) and later kings (1 Samuel 10:1) were anointed. When the LORD commands this oil to be put on something, it marks that thing as set apart for him.

That is what “hallow” means. The verb qâdash is to make or pronounce clean, to set apart as holy, and the KJV renders it “hallow” in verse 9 and “sanctify” in verses 10, 11 and 13. The noun qôdesh, a holy thing or holiness, gives the closing words “and it shall be holy”. What was ordinary wood, cloth and metal now belongs to God alone, and the LORD himself declares it so.

The anointing reaches everything. It covers the tabernacle, “all that is therein”, and “all the vessels thereof”, where kᵉlîy is a wide word for any implement or utensil. The altar is anointed with its shovels, basons, fleshhooks and firepans (Exodus 27:3). The laver is anointed with “his foot”, the stand it rested on. God claims the whole of his house, down to its smallest tool. He says of those who come near him that he will be sanctified in them (Leviticus 10:3).

This is the last preparation before the LORD comes. When Moses has done all of it, the cloud covers the tent and the glory of the LORD fills the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34–38).

A house for God needs priests to serve in it, and the LORD appoints them as carefully as he furnished the tent. The nations had priests of their own. Israel’s priests were chosen by God and set apart in the way he commanded, and Scripture says of this office, “no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron” (Hebrews 5:4). The LORD named Aaron and his sons for the priesthood (Numbers 3:10). Moses carries out these commands in Leviticus 8.

Washed. Moses is to “bring” them, qârab, to cause to come near, to the door of the tent, here called by its two words ʼôhel and môwʻêd. There he is to wash them with water. The verb râchats means to wash or bathe, the whole or a part. This washing at their ordination (Leviticus 8:6) was done once at the threshold of God’s house, and it is distinct from the washing of hands and feet at the laver in their daily service. Jacob had told his household to be clean and change their garments before going up to Bethel, and the Levites were later sprinkled with water of purifying (Numbers 8:7). Those who serve a holy God are first made clean.

Clothed. Aaron is dressed in “the holy garments”, qôdesh and beged, a word for clothes. They are the high priest’s garments of Exodus 28, made “for glory and for beauty” (Exodus 28:2). His sons, bên, are Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. Moses brings them near, with the same verb qârab, and clothes them, lâbash, to wrap around or put on a garment, with “coats”. The coat, kᵉthôneth, is a tunic, the fine linen garment every priest wore next to the body (Leviticus 8:13). The sons also wore linen breeches, girdles and bonnets. Their clothing marked them out from the people as men set apart, and the white linen spoke of the purity their service required.

Anointed. The oil was poured on Aaron’s head (Leviticus 8:12), and the sons are anointed “as thou didst anoint their father” (Leviticus 8:30). Their office comes from the same God, by the same act. The purpose is stated for Aaron and again for his sons: “that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office”. The Hebrew is one verb, kâhan, to serve as a priest. Their service was directed to God first. They offered the sacrifices, burned the incense, blessed the people and taught them God’s law, standing between a holy God and his people.

The New Testament reads this chapter as a picture of Jesus. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), and the Greek verb, eskēnōsen, means that he tabernacled, or pitched his tent, among us. He is Emmanuel, God with us (Matthew 1:23). In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9), and he spoke of his own body as the temple that would be raised in three days (John 2:19–21).

The furnishings point to him. He is the bread of life (John 6:35) and the light of the world (John 8:12). The incense before the ark pictures his prayers for us. The priests of Aaron’s line were many because death removed them, but Jesus continues for ever and “ever liveth to make intercession” for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:23–25).

The altar before the door points to the cross. Jesus is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). God set him forth as “a propitiation through faith in his blood” (Romans 3:25), we have an altar of our own in him (Hebrews 13:10), and he appeared once to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself (Hebrews 9:26–28). The laver points to the cleansing he gives. He has washed us from our sins in his own blood (Revelation 1:5), which Paul calls “the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5). Jesus told Peter that the one who is washed is clean and needs only to wash his feet (John 13:10). So we walk in the light, where his blood cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7), we confess our sins and are forgiven (1 John 1:9), and he cleanses his church with the washing of water by the word (Ephesians 5:26).

The vail that covered the ark was rent in twain from the top to the bottom when Jesus died (Matthew 27:51). Christ entered the true holy place in heaven once, by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:11–14). We now have boldness to enter the holiest by “a new and living way”, with hearts sprinkled and bodies washed (Hebrews 10:19–22), and we may “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). The one gate of the court has its answer in his words, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

Aaron, washed, robed and anointed, is a shadow of him too. Jesus is our great high priest (Hebrews 4:14). He is holy, harmless and undefiled in himself, and he offered himself once for the sins of the people (Hebrews 7:26–27). He is a priest after the order of Melchisedec, by the power of an endless life (Hebrews 7:11–17), made priest with an oath (Hebrews 7:20–22). The title Messiah, Mashiach, means “Anointed One” and comes from the verb mâshach of this passage. Jesus was anointed with the Holy Ghost (Acts 10:38), given to him without measure (John 3:34), and he opened his ministry with the words, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me” (Luke 4:18–19). In him we are clothed as well. Isaiah rejoices in the garments of salvation and the robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10), and we are made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Exodus ends with God moving in. The whole book has been heading here, from slavery, through the sea and the covenant, to a tent in the middle of the camp with the LORD inside it. What he wanted from the start was to live with the people he redeemed, and he arranged every curtain and basin so that sinners could live near him and be safe.

The New Testament says that this is now true of us. Believers are built up as lively stones into a spiritual house, “an holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5), “a royal priesthood”, called out of darkness into his marvellous light (1 Peter 2:9). The church is the temple of God, in whom his Spirit dwells (1 Corinthians 3:16), and the body of each believer is the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19). The oil that claimed every vessel in the tabernacle helps us understand what it means to belong to God wholly. Paul speaks of presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1), and Hebrews of offering the sacrifice of praise continually (Hebrews 13:15). The priests’ linen has its counterpart in the mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness and longsuffering that God’s chosen people put on (Colossians 3:12). The God who said of his house “it shall be holy” says to us, “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15–16).

The tent in the wilderness was also a promise of the end. John hears a great voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3). The dwelling that Moses raised on the first day of the first month looks forward to that day, when God’s people will live in his presence for ever.