Exodus 25King James Version
The first instructions for building the tabernacle. The ark of the covenant of acacia wood overlaid with gold. The mercy seat with two cherubim of beaten gold facing each other. The table of showbread. The golden lampstand with its seven branches, almond blossoms, and bowls. Everything according to the pattern shown to Moses on the mountain.
God gives Moses the design for the tabernacle from the mountain. Israel is to bring an offering of precious materials: gold, silver, bronze, fine linen, goat hair, ram skins, acacia wood, oil, spices, onyx stones. Then the specific designs: the ark of acacia wood overlaid with gold, with gold rings and poles, topped by a mercy seat flanked by two gold cherubim. The table for showbread, with its dishes and spoons. The seven-branched golden lampstand, beaten from a single talent of gold. Make them after the pattern God shows Moses on the mountain.
The tabernacle is designed to be portable because Israel's God is not a local deity attached to geography but a traveling presence who camps with his people wherever they go.
v8: "And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them" -- the purpose of the entire construction project: a space where God dwells within the community, not above it.
The top of Sinai, where Moses has been in cloud and fire for forty days. The instructions come in great detail: cubits, rings, acacia wood, hammered gold. The materials listed in the offering, gold and blue and scarlet and fine linen, are luxury trade goods that Israel has just acquired from the Egyptians on the way out. The raw materials for the tabernacle came from the empire that enslaved them.
God speaks entirely; Moses receives; the craftsmen who will build it are not yet named. The mercy seat's cherubim are described as a single object formed and beaten together, not assembled from parts.
The ark of the covenant described here became the most sought object in ancient Near Eastern religious consciousness. It held the tablets. Leviticus describes God speaking from between the cherubim. The ark's construction details are precise enough that many have attempted to reconstruct it. The mercy seat, kapporeth, is the word translated 'propitiation' in Paul's letter to the Romans.
For when you want to understand what it means that God wants to be present in the middle of ordinary life rather than waiting for you in a fixed place. The tabernacle design is a mobile home for the divine, and it moves when the people move.
1And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering.
3And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass,
4And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair,
5And rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and shittim wood,
6Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense,
7Onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate.
8And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.
9According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.
10And they shall make an ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.
11And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, within and without shalt thou overlay it, and shalt make upon it a crown of gold round about.
12And thou shalt cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in the four corners thereof; and two rings shall be in the one side of it, and two rings in the other side of it.
13And thou shalt make staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold.
14And thou shalt put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark, that the ark may be borne with them.
15The staves shall be in the rings of the ark: they shall not be taken from it.
16And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee.
17And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof.
18And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat.
19And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof.
20And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.
21And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee.
22And there 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, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.
23Thou shalt also make a table of shittim wood: two cubits shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.
24And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, and make thereto a crown of gold round about.
25And thou shalt make unto it a border of an hand breadth round about, and thou shalt make a golden crown to the border thereof round about.
26And thou shalt make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings in the four corners that are on the four feet thereof.
27Over against the border shall the rings be for places of the staves to bear the table.
28And thou shalt make the staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be borne with them.
29And thou shalt make the dishes thereof, and spoons thereof, and covers thereof, and bowls thereof, to cover withal: of pure gold shalt thou make them.
30And thou shalt set upon the table shewbread before me alway.
31And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work shall the candlestick be made: his shaft, and his branches, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, shall be of the same.
32And six branches shall come out of the sides of it; three branches of the candlestick out of the one side, and three branches of the candlestick out of the other side:
33Three bowls made like unto almonds, with a knop and a flower in one branch; and three bowls made like almonds in the other branch, with a knop and a flower: so in the six branches that come out of the candlestick.
34And in the candlestick shall be four bowls made like unto almonds, with their knops and their flowers.
35And there shall be a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same, according to the six branches that proceed out of the candlestick.
36Their knops and their branches shall be of the same: all it shall be one beaten work of pure gold.
37And thou shalt make the seven lamps thereof: and they shall light the lamps thereof, that they may give light over against it.
38And the tongs thereof, and the snuffdishes thereof, shall be of pure gold.
39Of a talent of pure gold shall he make it, with all these vessels.
40And look that thou make them after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount.