24 1 God said to Moses on Mount Sinai,
Come up and worship me from afar: you, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders.
2 But only you (Moses) can come near me.
3 Moses went down the mountain and told the people what God said.
And the people said, "We'll do whatever God says."
4 Moses wrote down all of God's words. Then he built an altar and twelve pillars.
5 He killed some animals and put half the blood in bowls and sprinkled the other half on the altar.
7 He read the book of the covenant to the people, and the people said,
We'll do whatever God says.
8 Then Moses sprinkled blood on the people.
9-11 Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of their companions climbed Mount Sinai and saw God, including his feet, which stood on a sapphire stone.
12 God said to Moses,
Come up on the mountain and I'll give you tables of stone, a law, and commandments which I have written.
13 So Moses climbed Mount Sinai again, which was covered by a cloud.
18 Moses stayed on the cloudy mount for forty days and nights.
25 1-40 God said to Moses,
Tell every man in Israel to bring me gold, silver, brass....
26 1-37 God said to Moses,
Make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine linen, blue, purple, and scarlet.
Include cherubim of cunning work....
27 1-21 God said to Moses,
Make an altar of shittim wood, five cubits long, five cubits wide, and three cubits high....
Carole asked about shittim wood, which was used to make some of the things that God wanted. So I looked it up.
Apparently there is a tree that grows in region of the Sinai called the Shittah tree. It is the species Vachellia tortilis in the legume or pea family (Fabaceae). It produces a beautiful orange-colored wood, which is strong, close-grained, and heavy.
Carole also wondered if Noah's ark was made out of the same type of wood. So I looked that up too.
The story in Genesis says that Noah made the ark out of gopher wood (Genesis 6:14). This type of wood isn't mentioned anywhere else in the Bible and no one seems to have any idea what species it might refer to, although some have guessed it to be a cypress tree, specifically the Mediterranean Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens).
We're not including God's wish list here, but that doesn't mean it isn't important to God. In fact, it appears very important to him - so important that he lists it twice in Exodus. (See Exodus 35:4-19.)
Many of the things that God wants require lots of gold. For example, the vessels alone will require a talent of gold.
Of a talent of pure gold shall he make it, with all these vessels. 25:39
A talent of gold is about 33 kg. This would be worth about 1.4 million U.S. dollars today.
Copyright © 1999-2024
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible
Send comments to Steve Wells
at swwells(at)gmail.com
