Exodus 25:1-40

I. Prerequisites: the materials; the assessments. Exodus 25:1-9

As the real temple of God must consist in believing hearts which offer themselves and build themselves into a temple of the Spirit of God, so the typical sanctuary must be built of voluntary offerings of the people of God: “Every one whose heart maketh him willing.”
On the assessments for the building (תְּרוּמָה, heave-offering), the blue purple (תְּכֵלֶת), the purple proper, the white cloth (שֵׁשׁ, βύσσος, fine linen), etc., comp. Keil, II., p. 163. There is dispute concerning the Tahash skins (תַּחַשׁ according to some, the seal; according to others, the badger), the shittim wood (probably acacia; see Keil’s note, p. 164), the Shoham stone (beryl, or onyx), the garment for the shoulder (ephod), and the breastplate. The materials were: (1) The metals. Vid. Knob., p. 257. Iron came into use later. (2) The materials for cloths. (3) The woven fabrics (brocades, variegated cloths, plain cloths). (4) Skins. (5) Wood. (6) Oil. (7) Spices. (8) Precious stones. These materials were to be made into the sanctuary, Jehovah’s dwelling-place, in which He is to dwell in the midst of His people, and meet with them. “According to all that I show thee;” not, “have shown thee.” The ideal significance of the pattern is contested by Keil in such a way as really leaves only a meaningless model for a meaningless structure; though afterwards this view is modified, II., p. 165.

II. The Building Itself. Exodus 25:10 to Exodus 27:19.

1. The Ark. Exodus 25:10-22

The Holy of holies in the strictest sense—the essential, principal thing in it. Three items are here to be considered: (1) The Ark; (2) The Mercy-seat; (3) The Cherubim. In other words: the preservation of the law as expressing the divine will in its special demands; the altar in its highest form, viz., the mercy-seat (kapporeth), as a symbol of God’s gracious willingness to accept expiation as such a fulfilment of His general will as covers and removes the demands imposed by the law, or the special will, on account of guilt; finally, the two cherubim as symbols of God’s righteous dominion in the world, proceeding out of God’s gracious will and the law, in order to the maintenance of the justice which is represented by the union of the ark and the cover [the mercy-seat]. The whole is accordingly the place where God reveals Himself in His glory under the conditions according to which the high-priest is to appear before Him. For a description of the ark vid. Keil, II., p. 167. Why are the tables of the law which are to be put in it called the testimony (so Exodus 31:18; Exodus 34:29)? Because they are to be a witness of the foundation of the covenant which Jehovah has made with Israel,—the original records, therefore, of the exact phraseology of the covenant. So, too, they might become a witness for Jehovah against Israel. Why is the lid called כַּפֹּרֶת? Certainly not simply because it covers the ark. But when Keil (p. 168) denies that the religious significance of the term originated with that of covering, on the ground that this older meaning cannot be substantiated, the literal sense of כָּפַר in Genesis 6:14 is against him; and when in 1 Chronicles 28:11 the Holy of holies is called בֵּית הַכַּפֹּרֶת, that may indeed not mean “lid-house,” but it does not therefore for that reason mean house of expiation, but house of the kapporeth, of the lid of expiation. The transition, too, from the first meaning to the second is very natural. The covering up of the demands of specific law formulated in commandments, and the covering up of guilt itself are reciprocal notions. The verb כִּפֵּר, when relating to guilt, is construed with the Accus., Psalms 78:38; also with עַל, Jeremiah 18:23. The word in relation to persons is construed with לְ, with עַל, and with בְּעַד, all in the general sense of “for.” From the last preposition [“in behalf of”] it clearly follows that the senseless explanation which makes כִּפֵּר denote a covering (concealing) of the sinful person himself from the eyes of Jehovah, an explanation which aims to invalidate the doctrine of the atonement, is entirely untenable. The transaction indicated by כִּפֵּר is performed by the priest both on the part of man and on the part of Jehovah. Examples of the full construction, Leviticus 5:18; Leviticus 4:26. On the ἱλαστήριον see Commentary on Romans 45:3. The symbol of the cherubim was gradually developed out of the passage Genesis 3:24; vid. Comm. On Genesis, p. 241. Here there are as yet only two forms, as also in 2 Chronicles 3:13; the full development is found in the symbol of Ezekiel, ch, 1. From Ezekiel we might be led to conjecture that the first two forms were the face of a man and that of a lion; but it is of chief importance to maintain that the central thought is not that of representative forms of animal life, but only of representative mundane forms symbolizing the divine sovereignty as protecting the ark of the covenant; they are forms which come forth out of the substance of the mercy-seat. On these forms see Keil, p. 168, the lexicons, and works on archæology. On the staves see Knobel, who without reason denies that by “testimony” the two tables are meant. These, he says, were already prepared; but the context disproves this. That the images of the cherubim are to be conceived as hollow, does not agree with the representation that they are of beaten work, of one piece with the mercy-seat. Finally, the tent under the designation אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד, “tent of meeting,” means somewhat more than that Jehovah therein has a fixed place of meeting with Moses and Israel, just as מִשְׁכַּך הָעֵדוּת cannot mean tabernacle of attestation, i.e., God’s place of revelation, but tabernacle of the testimony; for Jehovah’s revelation was not confined to this place in Israel.

2. The Table. Exodus 25:23-30

The symbol of communion between Jehovah and His people. See Revelation of John. On the two crowns (rims) of the table see Keil. The vessels belonging to the table were plates for the shew-bread, bowls for the incense (Leviticus 24:7), pitchers to hold the wine, and goblets for the drink-offering. The “bread of the face,” or shew-bread, is, according to Keil, “symbol of the spiritual food which Israel was to produce,” referring to John 6:27, and doubtless also to Hengstenberg. But what spiritual food was Israel, according to John 6:27, to produce? A food which the Son of God would give them, the bread which came from heaven. We must also avoid confounding, with Keil, the shew-bread with the bloodless offerings, vid. Leviticus 3:2. The shew-bread was one of the permanent institutions of the temple, not one of the special offerings of the people. “The table,” says Knobel, “stood in the holy place on the north side (Exodus 26:35), while the candlestick belonged on the south side (Exodus 25:35), and the altar of incense in the middle (Exodus 30:6).” Archæological observations vid. in his Comm, p. 266, especially on the dishes. On the use to which the pitchers and the goblets or bowls were put, Keil and Knobel come to opposite conclusions, the latter with grammatical proofs.

3. The Golden Candlestick. Exodus 25:31-40

First is to be considered the form of the golden candlestick; next, its use; finally, its significance. The candlestick has been often described and pictured (vid. Thenius, Bücher der Könige, Tab. III., 11). Comp. Winer, Reallexicon; Zeller’s Wörterbuch, and the Commentaries. [More especially, Reland, de Spoliis templi Hierosolymitani in arcu Titiano, Tr.]. On the base, which mast necessarily have had feet, stood the candlestick, first as a single thing. It extended upwards in the form of a middle shaft, which had on each side three shafts in one plane, bending around in the form of quarter-circles,—a unit, therefore, branching out into the sacred number, seven.

The general form is easily pictured: a base; a perpendicular central shaft, the trunk, as it were, of the luminous tree; and proceeding out of it at regular distances three branches on either side. The description is made obscure or difficult by the ornaments. The principal feature of the ornamentation is the almond-shaped cup; it is divided into the knob, or apple, and the flower. The main shaft has four such cups; out of the lowest proceeds the shaft itself, as well as the first pair of branches. Out of the second proceeds the second pair of branches; out of the third, the third; its fourth cup is its top. The six branches, or side shafts, have each three cups. The one forms the top; the second may have been in the middle of the curve of the branch; the third seems to have lain against one of the three divisions, or cups, of the main shaft. The seven cups which form the top stand in a horizontal line; the lamps are set up into their flowers. But the explanations of the difficult passage are various.

But the main shaft is distinguished by having four cups. So the one unit branches into the three, the three into the seven, and the seven into the twenty-two. “The golden candlestick was placed on the south side in the holy place of the tabernacle. For the south is the direction from which the light comes, and is therefore called also דָּרוֹם. The seven lamps of the candlestick were set up every evening at the time of the evening incense offering, and were kept burning until morning” (Knobel). They lighted the whole sanctuary, but cast their light especially northwards towards the altar of incense and the table of shew-bread; for the life of prayer and the communion of salvation are conditioned on the light of revelation, enlightenment. Keil’s explanation of the candlestick is, in our opinion, as mistaken as that of the table: “In the shining lamps, as receivers, bearers of light, Israel is to present itself continually to Jehovah as a people that lets its light shine in the night of this world.” Did the nocturnal darkness of the sanctuary symbolize “the night of this world?” Israel is indeed appointed to bear light, but the light which it is to diffuse is the light of the revelation of Jehovah, and the bearers of the light are primarily the select ones, the prophets of God. Keil himself urges that the oil is a symbol of God’s Spirit, as also the olive-tree described in Zechariah 38:4, and the seven candlesticks in Revelation 1:20. The significance of the sacred numbers, as well as that of the pure gold, is obvious. On the almond flowers, comp. Keil and Knobel. On the appurtenances of the candlestick see Knobel.

Footnotes: 

[4][So Knobel says. But the use of iron is ascribed to Tubal-cain (Genesis 4:22), and iron instruments are referred to in Numbers 35:16, to say nothing of the frequent mention of iron in Deuteronomy and Joshua. Tr.]

[5][Their conclusions are different only as regards the קְשָׁוֹת and מנַקִּיֹּת, Keil making the first mean the bowls from which the wine was poured out as a drink-offering; the second, the pitchers in which the wine stood on the table. Knobel reverses this relation, arguing that מְנַקִּית is derived from נִקָּה, to pour out. With him agree Gesenius and Fürst. Tr.].

[6][According to some (e.g., Philippson) the line connecting the seven lamps formed a curve, not a straight line. It would seem probable that the ornamental flowers were not crowded together on the central shaft, as Lange conceives, but put at equal intervals from one another. It is also probable that there were three flowers on each branch between the main shaft and the lamp, and that the fourth flower of the main shaft was between its lamp and the upper branch. Tr.].