Exodus 25:40

Exo 25:40 And look that thou make [them] after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount.

Ver. 40. After their pattern, &c.] The like also was afterwards given in writing, for the building of the temple. {1Ch 28:19 Heb 8:5}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Exo_25:40

Their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount.

Heavens teaching on earths duties

I. That nothing is too trivial for God to notice.

II. That we should speak to God about ordinary work, even in our seasons of highest spiritual communion.

III. That even slight deviations from Gods directions are forbidden.

IV. That what we are called upon to do has far more depending upon it than we suppose. (A. Rowland, LL. B.)

Purpose in life; a lesson to the young

I. The necessity of a deliberate purpose in life. When an architect, or builder, or engineer, undertakes the construction of a house, the first thing he does is to get perfect his plans, and to be sure they are correct, so that he knows well what the future house, or bridge, or railway, will be like. If he went at his work in a haphazard manner, it would end in failure and disappointment. So with life.

II. This purpose of life should be formed on the model shown us by God.

1. The highest life is the holiest life, for it is nearest to the model set us by God.

2. The plan by which we are to mould our temporal concerns is already given us. Look at Mount Sinai for laws to obey; at the Mount of Olives for loving directions: at the Mount of Transfiguration for anticipation, hope of glory; at Mount Calvary for forgiven sin. (Homilist.)

The pattern in the mount

I. Moses did his work from a plan, and did not get his plan from his work. Reality is prior to the show of itself. There are no planless seeds. A far-reaching plan is the best one. Calculation is better than caprice. We are wiser in the long reach of thought than in the short reach. We are lost in the woods because we have no room for a long look. You say life is short. Better live on the short arc of a long circle than describe a little circle with the same line. Immediate results are meagre results. Plan solidifies. Power is measurable by purpose. Shiftlessness is a name for aimlessness. To-morrow depends on to-day, but to-day depends on to-morrow also. Past and present sustain each other. Plan gives moral safeguard. Adam fell because he had nothing to do, and the first act in the redemptive scheme was to set him to work. Satan recruits his ranks from the vagrants. The apostles were working men. The drifting boat drifts down stream. Young aimlessness is the beginning of old iniquity. Employment is a subsidiary means of conversion. Character, purpose and apprenticeship are not far apart.

II. Moses brought down his pattern from the mount. There is a celestial way of doing earthly things. Earthly success is a quotation from overhead. Our ideals are from patterns in the mount. There is something in them we never put into them. Whence are our ideals? We have never seen a perfect thing. What do we mean by using the word? We must go with Moses to the mount for the answer. In nothing do men have so much faith as in their ideals, and there is nothing which it is so hard to explain. We do not make laws, but find them. We cannot enact truth any more than gravity. There may be a myth about Sinai, but it is one we were bound to invent if it never was reality. The problem of life is to make the ideal real. Once it was done in Galilee. The two meet in Jesus. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)

.

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

look that thou make them after their pattern--This caution, which is repeated with no small frequency in other parts of the narrative, is an evidence of the deep interest taken by the Divine King in the erection of His palace or sanctuary; and it is impossible to account for the circumstance of God's condescending to such minute details, except on the assumption that this tabernacle was to be of a typical character, and eminently subservient to the religious instruction and benefit of mankind, by shadowing forth in its leading features the grand truths of the Christian Church.

Next: Exodus Chapter 26

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 40. And look that thou make, c.] This verse should be understood as an order to Moses after the tabernacle, c., had been described to him as if he had said: "When thou comest to make all the things that I have already described to thee, with the other matters of which I shall afterwards treat, see that thou make every thing according to the pattern which thou didst see in the mount." The Septuagint have it, κατα τον τυτον τον δεδειγμενον σοι· according to the TYPE-form or fashion, which was shown thee. It appears to me that St. Paul had this command particularly in view when he gave that to his son Timothy which we find in the second epistle, 2Ti 1:13: Ὑποτυπωσιν εχε ὑγιαινοντων λογων, ὡν παρ' εμου ηκουσας. "Hold fast the FORM of sound words which thou hast heard of me." The tabernacle was a type of the Church of God; that Church is built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone, Eph 2:20-22: the doctrines, therefore, delivered by the prophets, Jesus Christ, and his apostles, are essential to the constitution of this church. As God, therefore, gave the plan or form according to which the tabernacle must be constructed, so he gives the doctrines according to which the Christian Church is to be modelled; and apostles, and subordinate builders, are to have and hold fast that FORM of sound words, and construct this heavenly building according to that form or pattern which has come through the express revelation of God.

IN different parts of this work we have had occasion to remark that the heathens borrowed their best things from Divine revelation, both as it refers to what was pure in their doctrines, and significant in their religious rites. Indeed, they seem in many cases to have studied the closest imitation possible, consistent with the adaptation of all to their preposterous and idolatrous worship. They had their IAO or JOVE, in imitation of the true JEHOVAH; and from different attributes of the Divine Nature they formed an innumerable group of gods and goddesses. They had also their temples in imitation of the temple of God; and in these they had their holy and more holy places, in imitation of the courts of the Lord's house. The heathen temples consisted of several parts or divisions:

1. The area or porch;

2. The ναος or temple, similar to the nave of our churches;

3. The adytum or holy place, called also penetrale and sacrarium; and,

4. The οπισθοδομος or the inner temple, the most secret recess, where they had their mysteria, and which answered to the holy of holies in the tabernacle.

And as there is no evidence whatever that there was any temple among the heathens prior to the tabernacle, it is reasonable to conclude that it served as a model for all that they afterwards built. They had even their portable temples, to imitate the tabernacle; and the shrines for Diana, mentioned Ac 19:24, were of this kind. They had even their arks or sacred coffers, where they kept their most holy things, and the mysterious emblems of their religion; together with candlesticks or lamps, to illuminate their temples, which had few windows, to imitate the golden candlestick in the Mosaic tabernacle. They had even their processions, in imitation of the carrying about of the ark in the wilderness, accompanied by such ceremonies as sufficiently show, to an unprejudiced mind, that they borrowed them from this sacred original. Dr. Dodd has a good note on this subject, which I shall take the liberty to extract.

Speaking of the ark, he says, "We meet with imitations of this Divinely instituted emblem among several heathen nations. Thus Tacitus, De Moribus Germanorum, cap. 40, informs us that the inhabitants of the north of Germany, our Saxon ancestors, in general worshipped Herthum or Hertham, i.e., the mother earth: Hertham being plainly derived from ארץ arets, earth, and אם am, mother: and they believed her to interpose in the affairs of men, and to visit nations: that to her, in a sacred grove in a certain island of the ocean, a vehicle covered with a vestment was consecrated, and allowed to be touched by the priests only, (compare 2Sa 6:6-7; 1Ch 13:9-10), who perceived when the goddess entered into her secret place, penetrale, and with profound veneration attended her vehicle, which was drawn by cows; see 1Sa 6:7-10. While the goddess was on her progress, days of rejoicing were kept in every place which she vouchsafed to visit; they engaged in no war, they handled no weapons; peace and quietness were then only known, only relished, till the same priest reconducted the goddess to her temple. Then the vehicle and vestment, and, if you can believe it, the goddess herself, were washed in a sacred lake."

Apuleius, De Aur. Asin., lib. ii., describing a solemn idolatrous procession, after the Egyptian mode, says, "A chest, or ark, was carried by another, containing their secret things, entirely concealing the mysteries of religion."

And Plutarch, in his treatise De Iside, c., describing the rites of Osiris, says, "On the tenth day of the month, at night, they go down to the sea and the stolists, together with the priest, carry forth the sacred chest, in which is a small boat or vessel of gold."

Pausanius likewise testifies, lib. vii., c. 19, that the ancient Trojans had a sacred ark, wherein was the image of BACCHUS, made by Vulcan, which had been given to Dardanus by Jupiter. As the ark was deposited in the holy of holies, so the heathens had in the inmost part of their temples an adytum or penetrale, to which none had access but the priests. And it is remarkable that, among the Mexicans, Vitzliputzli, their supreme god, was represented under a human shape, sitting on a throne, supported by an azure globe which they called heaven; four poles or sticks came out from two sides of this globe, at the end of which serpents' heads were carved, the whole making a litter which the priests carried on their shoulders whenever the idol was shown in public.-Religious Ceremonies, vol. iii., p. 146.

Calmet remarks that the ancients used to dedicate candlesticks in the temples of their gods, bearing a great number of lamps.

Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxiv., c. 3, mentions one made in the form of a tree, with lamps in the likeness of apples, which Alexander the Great consecrated in the temple of Apollo.

And Athenaeus, lib. xv., c. 19, 20, mentions one that supported three hundred and sixty-five lamps, which Dionysius the younger, king of Syracuse, dedicated in the Prytaneum at Athens. As the Egyptians, according to the testimony of Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom., lib. i., were the first who used lamps in their temples, they probably borrowed the use from the golden candlestick in the tabernacle and temple.

From the solemn and very particular charge, Look that thou make them after their pattern, which was showed thee in the mount, it appears plainly that God showed Moses a model of the tabernacle and all its furniture; and to receive instructions relative to this was one part of his employment while on the mount forty days with God. As God designed that this building, and all that belonged to it, should be patterns or representations of good things to come, it was indispensably necessary that Moses should receive a model and specification of the whole, according to which he might direct the different artificers in their constructing the work.

1. We may observe that the whole tabernacle and its furniture resembled a dwelling-house and its furniture.

2. That this tabernacle was the house of God, not merely for the performance of his worship, but for his residence.

3. That God had promised to dwell among this people, and this was the habitation which he appointed for his glory.

4. That the tabernacle, as well as the temple, was a type of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. See Joh 1:14, and Joh 2:19; Joh 2:21.

5. That as the glory of God was manifested between the cherubim, above the mercy-seat, in this tabernacle, so God was in Christ, and in him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

6. As in the tabernacle were found bread, light, &c., probably all these were emblematical of the ample provision made in Christ for the direction, support, and salvation of the soul of man. Of these, and many other things in the law and the prophets, we shall know more when mortality is swallowed up of life.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(40) After their pattern.—Comp, Exo_25:9.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

40. Cf. v. 9: also Num_8:4; and Act_7:44.

In Solomon’s Temple there were ten golden candlesticks, five standing on each side of the Holy place, in front of the adyton (1Ki_7:49; cf. Jer_52:19): in the post-exilic Temple there was only a single candlestick (1Ma_1:21; 1Ma_4:49). It is this which was taken from the Herodian Temple by the Romans, and is represented on the famous Arch of Titus. In the Temple at Shiloh there was only a single lamp (1Sa_3:3).

The Ark

It is impossible to give here a history of the Ark; but a few words may be permitted, respecting the religious ideas associated with it, and opinions as to its possible origin.

The oldest name of the ark was the ‘ark of Jehovah,’ Jos_3:13 &c. (or ‘of God,’ 1Sa_3:3 &c.), or, less frequently, ‘the ark’ alone (Num_10:35 al.): the Deut. expression (see p. 193) is ‘the ark of the covenant’ (with or without ‘of Jehovah’ added): P’s characteristic expression is the ‘ark of the testimony’ (13 times: see on Exo_25:16; Exo_25:22). Both these latter terms are used with allusion to the tables inscribed with the Decalogue, which,—as in our extant sources (see however on Exo_34:3) we first learn from Deu_10:2; Deu_10:5,—were contained in it. In itself the ‘ark’ is similar in principle to the sacred chests in which many other ancient nations, as the Egyptians, Etruscans, Greeks, kept images, or other sacred objects, and sometimes also carried them in processions. Now it is noticeable that in nearly all the pre-Deuteronomic references, the ark—which in these passages ‘must be thought of as a simple chest, very different from the gold-covered shrine of P, with its’ massive golden ‘mercy-seat, and over-arching cherubim’ (Kennedy)—appears as much more than a mere receptacle of two inscribed stones; it is, in fact, in a very special sense, a symbol and pledge of Jehovah’s presence; and it is even spoken of as if He were actually present in it, so that wherever the ark was, Jehovah was there with it. Especially in war is it thus regarded as the material vehicle or accompaniment of Jehovah’s presence. In the ancient verses preserved in Num_10:35 f.—originally, to judge from the terms used, the prayer with which the Ark was sent forth to battle, and the welcome with which its return was greeted,—‘Arise, O Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered, Let them that hate thee flee before thee,’ and ‘Return, O Jehovah, to the myriads of Israel’s clans,’ Jehovah is addressed as though He were present in the ark, and moved with it. The case is similar in 1Sa_4:3, where the Hebrew sheikhs say, ‘Let us fetch the ark of Jehovah … from Shiloh, that it may come … and save us,’ and when it arrives, the Philistines exclaim (v. 7), ‘God is come into the camp’; and in Exo_6:19, where, after the ark has been brought back, and some of the men of Bethshemesh are smitten, the others exclaim, ‘Who is able to stand before Jehovah this holy God?’ So in 2Sa_6:5 ff. David and the Israelites, accompanying the ark with dancing and music, are described as playing ‘before Jehovah’ (vv. 5, 21); and in Jos_7:6-9 the Israelites fall down before the ark and pray to Him. It is also evidently as the pledge of Jehovah’s presence and effectual help, that in 2Sa_11:11 the ark is taken with the host on a campaign, and that in 2Sa_15:24 f. Zadok takes it with David, when he leaves Jerusalem (though the king magnanimously sends it back): in Num_14:44, on the contrary, its absence from the host (which is tantamount to Jehovah’s absence, v. 42) is the cause of defeat. Other ancient nations took images of their gods into battle (2Sa_5:21 : Rel. Sem. 37, citing Polyb. vii. 9, Diod. xx. 65 [the Carthaginians’ ‘sacred tent’]): the Israelites had a custom which was the same in principle; but their palladium was the image-less ark.

These passages, which shew that in early Israel the ark was, in a very real sense, identified with the presence of Jehovah, are not adequately explained if the only purpose of the ark was to form a receptacle for the two tables of stone. How the former conception of the ark arose, the extant narratives do not state: they describe the ark as made purely to receive the tables of stone; and in P Jehovah speaks not from the ark itself, but from between the cherubim upon it. We are therefore reduced to conjecture. When we remember that Jacob speaks of the stone at Bethel as being itself the ‘house,’ or abode, of God (Gen_28:22), one supposition that suggests itself is that in very remote times the ark may have sheltered a sacred stone, regarded by the primitive Israelites as the abode of a deity (so Benz. Arch.1 369 [2312 a very different view]; Bä.; in greater detail, Cheyne, EB. i. 307 f.), but ‘transformed’ ultimately, ‘in reverent Hebrew thought “into a perfect written embodiment of the fundamental demands of Israel’s righteous God” ’ (McNeile, p. 163, without, however, definitely accepting this view). Such conjectures are not illegitimate: for our accounts of the beginnings of Israel’s religion, it must be borne in mind, are both imperfect in themselves, and spring from a time when higher and more spiritual ideas were current than had once been the case. Another view, which admits of being more easily accommodated to Exo_33:1-7, is that the ark contained a stone, or stones, taken from the sacred ‘mount of God,’ Horeb, which was regarded as an assurance of the protecting presence of Jehovah (whose abode was on Sinai, Exo_19:4) after they left it (Moore, EB. i. 2155): and there are independent reasons for thinking (see on Exo_33:6) that the ark was originally conceived as supplying some kind of visible substitute for Jehovah’s personal presence. Or, thirdly, Kennedy may be right (Samuel, in the Century Bible, p. 324) in seeing in the ark an embodiment of that ‘Presence of Jehovah,’ which it is promised shall accompany Israel to Canaan (Exo_33:14), as, not indeed Jehovah Himself, but His sufficient representative (cf. DB. i. 150 f.).

It is common to all these theories to regard the ark as not originally intended to receive the tables of the Decalogue: it is not probable, it is argued, that laws of fundamental importance, intended to be observed by all, should be placed where they could not be seen. The question cannot be here pursued further; and it must suffice to refer the reader, for fuller discussion, to Kennedy, DB. i. s.v., and Samuel, p. 321 ff.; Kautzsch, DB. v. 628 f., and McNeile, p. 161 ff. Jehovah’s presence, it is clear, was regarded as in some way ‘objectively attached to the ark’: but the historical origin of this idea our extant data do not enable us certainly to determine. And this is why we are driven to conjecture. It may only be worth while to add that in Jer_3:16 the time is looked forward to, by the spiritually-minded prophet, when no such material symbol of Jehovah’s presence will be needed; and the ark, having served its purpose through many centuries, will be neither ‘remembered, nor missed (RVm.), nor made again.’

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount. Compare ver. 9, and the comment ad loc. It would seem from this passage that the "patterns" were shown to Moses first, and the directions as to the making given afterwards.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

וראה ועשה AND SEE AND MAKE — See here, in the mountain, the pattern which I shew thee. This teaches you that Moses was puzzled about the workmanship of the Menorah until the Holy One, blessed be He, showed him the pattern of it in a candlestick of fire (Menachot 29a).

אשר אתה מראה WHICH WAS SHOWN THEE — Translate as the Targum does: דאת מתחזי בטורא which thou hast been shown on the mountain. If it were punctuated with Patach (מַרְאֶה) it would mean which you show to others,” now, however, that it is punctuated with חטף קמץ (our קמץ חטוף, short Kametz) it signifies, “which thou hast been shown” — i. e. which others show thee [for the punctuation distinguishes between the words denoting “one who does something” and “one who has something done to him” (i. e. between the active participle מַרְאֶה and the passive participle מָרְאֶה).]

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.