Exodus 36 – Giving More Than Enough

Bezalel, Aholiab and every gifted artisan in whom the Lord put wisdom and understanding to do the work for the service of the sanctuary, were to do all that the Lord commanded. So, Moses called them and all those in whose heart the Lord had put wisdom and whose heart was stirred to come and do the work. They received all the offerings from Moses that the Israelites brought for the work of the service of making the sanctuary. The people continued to bring freewill offerings to Moses every morning. The craftsmen doing the work, left their jobs and went to Moses, telling him that the people were bringing much more than enough for the service of the work that the Lord had commanded them to do. So, Moses gave the commandment and they proclaimed it throughout the camp that no man nor woman was to do any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. The people were restrained from bringing material because what they had was sufficient for all the work to be done. Indeed, it was too much. I am sure there are a lot of pastors and leaders who would love to have this problem. Even though the Israelites were giving more than enough in this instance, we must realize that we are incapable of giving God more than enough. When God gave His Only Begotten Son, Jesus, to die for our sins and He rose again defeating death and the grave, we were given a debt that we could never repay. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to give God our all as much as possible.

Let the work begin! Building the Tabernacle

Curtains – All the gifted artisans among them who worked on the tabernacle made ten curtains woven of fine linen and blue, purple and scarlet thread. They made them with artistic designs of cherubim. The curtains were all the same size with the length being twenty-eight cubits and the width being four cubits. The curtains were coupled in groups of five. Loops of blue yarn were on the edge of the curtain on the selvedge of one set and likewise on the outer edge of the curtain of the second set. Fifty loops were made on one set and fifty loops on the edge of the second set. The loops held one curtain to another. Fifty clasps of gold were made to couple the curtains to make one tabernacle. Eleven curtains were made of goats’ hair for the tent over the tabernacle. The eleven curtains were the same size, thirty cubits in length and four cubits in width. Five curtains were coupled together and the other six were coupled together. Fifty loops were made to the outermost curtain on one set and fifty loops on the edge of the curtain on the second set. Fifty bronze clasps were made to couple the tent together as one.

Tent Coverings – The covering for the tent was made of ram skins dyed red with a covering of badger skins above that.

The Tabernacle – Made of boards of acacia wood, standing upright. The length of each board was ten cubits and the width of each board was a cubit and a half. Each board had two tenons for binding one to another. There were twenty boards for the south side and twenty boards for the north side. Each side had forty sockets of silver to go under the boards; two sockets under each board for its two tenons. The west side of the tabernacle had six boards. There were two boards for the two back corners of the tabernacle coupled at the bottom and coupled at the top by one ring. So, there were eight boards and their sixteen sockets of silver; two sockets under each of the boards. Five bars of acacia wood were made for the boards on each side of the tabernacle with the middle bars passing through the boards from one side to the other. The boards and bars were overlaid with gold. There were rings of gold to be holders for the bars. Please revisit Exodus 26 for pictures of the acacia wood boards and bars of the Tabernacle.

The Veil – Blue, purple and scarlet thread was used along with fine woven linen. The veil was worked with an artistic design of cherubim. It also had four pillars of acacia wood overlaid with gold and with hooks of gold. The four sockets were made of silver.

The Screen – The Tabernacle door’s screen was made of blue, purple, and scarlet thread along with fine woven linen made by a weaver. It had five pillars with their hooks. Their capitals and rings were overlaid with gold, but their five sockets were bronze.

Next week, it’s Exodus 37.

To God Be The Glory!

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