Meticulously Building the Temple

Exodus 37-38:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus%2037-38&version=NIV1984

            Today’s reading is a head-scratcher.  It is a detail by detail telling of how exactly Bezalel and the craftsmen of Israel built the tabernacle.  The thing is it reads like a publishing error; it reads like someone accidentally repeated chapters 26, 27, and 30.  What are we to make of that?  Let me suggest three things.

            First, ancient writings are often very repetitive.  It’s simple an aspect of ancient style—not just in the Bible but in other writings contemporary with the Bible.  Part of this may be because the cultures transmitted most of their information orally and repetition served as an aid to memory.  So, we should just get used to the fact that Moses wouldn’t be winning any Pulitzers among us, but by the standards of his day he writes just like he’s supposed to.

            Second, and more importantly, we ought to note that what we have here is a relatively rare occasion of Israel living up to her vocation.   She was called to be God’s peculiar people and that uniqueness was supposed to be expressed in her obedience.  We have all sorts of examples of Israel’s failure, her disobedience.  Here we have an example where she did exactly what the Lord had said—exactly.  We could get all cynical and say, “Well, they’re so ashamed of the whole golden calf thing that of course they’re over compensating.”  I suppose you could make that case.  I’d rather see it that with the tabernacle, the place where their God was going to meet with them and forgive them, they saw something that was too important to mess up.

            But the most important aspect of the exactness of the tabernacle’s construction is an aspect that finds its focus in the New Testament.  Consider the sweeping ‘phases’ of the Bible’s story.  Israel’s early life is dominated by the tabernacle; the tabernacle is eventually replaced with the temple in Jerusalem; and both find their fulfillment in Jesus.  The Gospel of John draws on both images in John 1-2 to describe Jesus.  John 1:14 says that “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  The word translated ‘made his dwelling’ is a form of the word ‘tent/tabernacle.’  Literally the verse says, “The Word became flesh and pitched his tent/tabernacle among us.”  Then in John 2, John records the cleansing of the temple and identifies Jesus’ body with the temple.

            “Fair enough,” you say, “but what does it have to do with this repetitive reading?”  It seems to me that the tabernacle, like the temple after it, needs to be built ‘on spec’ because it is an institution that foreshadows Jesus, who does all things well, who is completely faithful to His Father, who is the perfect human being.  In the grand scheme of biblical theology, the tabernacle is meticulously constructed because it will draw us forward to the One who is Himself God’s meticulous remaking of our race and who is Himself meticulous in His devotion to the Lord.