EXPLORE THE TEXT
God desires for us to respond with obedience to His commands.
16 Moses did everything just as the Lord had commanded him.
17 The tabernacle was set up in the first month of the second year,
on the first day of the month.
18 Moses set up the tabernacle:
He laid its bases, positioned its supports,
inserted its crossbars, and set up its pillars.
19 Then he spread the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering of the tent on top of it,
just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
20 Moses took the testimony and placed it in the ark,
and attached the poles to the ark.
He set the mercy seat on top of the ark.
21 He brought the ark into the tabernacle, put up the curtain for the screen,
and screened off the ark of the testimony, just as the Lord had commanded him.
Use Understand the Context (PSG, p. 92)
Highlight God’s continued presence even when the people sinned.
After Moses received all of God’s covenant promises and stipulations, wrote them down, and read them to the people, they committed themselves to the Lord and were sealed by the blood of the covenant (Ex. 24:1-8).
The path was now open for them to enjoy peace with God in the only way they understood-through offerings in the house where He dwelt among them.
They just needed to build the house and its furniture by God’s specifications (24:18).
Having received God’s instructions, Moses was given the two stone tablets, inscribed by God’s finger (31:18).
These served as a symbol of God’s guarantee of His faithful love and Israel’s commitment to Him.
But, as so often happens, sin got in the way.
While Moses had been enveloped by God’s holiness and glory for forty days, the people grew impatient and urged Aaron to make them a new god.
Out of the Egyptian plunder destined for the tabernacle, Aaron made a gold calf and instituted counterfeit worship of “Yahweh” (32:1-6).
God justly threatened to destroy them, but Moses intervened.
He withdrew His threat, but not the disastrous consequences of their rebellion.
Some 3,000 people died, and God also struck Israel with a plague (32:35).
Exodus 33 shows how Israel’s covenant violation had corrupted their intimacy with God.
They were now under His discipline, and He had to keep His distance (33:3-6).
Moses became the nation’s mediator, using a tent outside the camp.
The estrangement between Israel and God contrasted with Moses’s intimacy with Him.
He talked with God “face to face,” an idiom that emphasized openness and directness rather than physical vision (33:11).
The relationship was also described as a friendship.
This was further illustrated by the remarkable conversation Moses had with God in 33:12-23,
where he glimpsed God’s glory, but not His face (33:20).
Exodus 34 constitutes the renewal of the covenant ceremony that began in chapter 19
but was interrupted by the apostasy in chapter 32.
Moses’s conversation with the Lord concluded in verses 8-9
with his plea for God’s forgiveness of Israel and their reconciliation, which the Lord accepted.
This resulted in the creation of two new, identical stone tablets
(34:1,29) since Moses had smashed the first two.
In addition, the Lord promised to lead Israel personally
and to drive out the Canaanites (34:11,24; see 33:2).
Chapters 35-39 then describe the tabernacle’s construction and the priestly garments.
Everything was done just as God had commanded Moses (38:22; 39:1,5,7,21,26,29,31,32,43).
Note that verses 16 and 27 of the passage bookends affirmations of Moses’s complete obedience to God’s plan.
identify the individual steps Moses took as he faithfully obeyed God and discuss what each step may have entailed.
Ever since leaving Egypt, Israel had struggled with trusting and obeying God.
And every time they fell short, He showed up to remind them that He loved them and that they were His people.
Now, with everything in place just as He directed, God was ready to show up again in an awesome way.