21 This is the price of the making of the House, even the House of witness, as it was valued by the word of Moses, for the work of the Levites under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest.
And Moses put the rods before the Lord in the Tent of witness. Now on the day after, Moses went into the Tent of witness; and he saw that Aaron's rod, the rod of the house of Levi, had put out buds, and was covered with buds and flowers and fruit.
For the first Tent was made ready, having in it the vessels for the lights and the table and the ordering of the bread; and this is named the holy place. And inside the second veil was the place which is named the Holy of holies;
Measuring into their hands six hundred and fifty talents of silver, and silver vessels, a hundred talents' weight, and a hundred talents of gold, And twenty gold basins, of a thousand darics, and two vessels of the best bright brass, equal in value to gold. And I said to them, You are holy to the Lord and the vessels are holy: and the silver and the gold are an offering freely given to the Lord, the God of your fathers. Take care of them and keep them, till you put them on the scales before the chiefs of the priests and the Levites and the chiefs of the families of Israel, in Jerusalem, in the rooms of the house of the Lord. So the priests and the Levites took the weight of silver and gold and the vessels, to take them to Jerusalem into the house of our God.
This is the work of the family of the Gershonites in the Tent of meeting, and they will be under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest. The sons of Merari are to be numbered by families, in the order of their fathers' houses; Every one from thirty to fifty years old who is able to do the work of the Tent of meeting. And this is their part in the work of the Tent of meeting: the transport of the boards and the rods of the Tent, with the pillars and their bases; And the pillars of the open space outside it, with their bases and their nails and cords and all the instruments used, and everything which has to be done there; all the instruments for which they are responsible are to be numbered by name. This is the work which the sons of Merari are to do in connection with the Tent of meeting, under the direction of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest.
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Commentary on Exodus 38 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 38
Ex 38:1-31. Furniture of the Tabernacle.
1. the altar of burnt offering—The repetitions are continued, in which may be traced the exact conformity of the execution to the order.
8. laver of brass … of the looking glasses of the women—The word mirrors should have been used, as those implements, usually round, inserted into a handle of wood, stone, or metal, were made of brass, silver, or bronze, highly polished [Wilkinson]. It was customary for the Egyptian women to carry mirrors with them to the temples; and whether by taking the looking glasses of the Hebrew women Moses designed to put it out of their power to follow a similar practice at the tabernacle, or whether the supply of brass from other sources in the camp was exhausted, it is interesting to learn how zealously and to a vast extent they surrendered those valued accompaniments of the female toilet.
of the women assembling … at the door—not priestesses but women of pious character and influence, who frequented the courts of the sacred building (Lu 2:37), and whose parting with their mirrors, like the cutting the hair of the Nazarites, was their renouncing the world for a season [Hengstenberg].
9. the court—It occupied a space of one hundred and fifty feet by seventy-five, and it was enclosed by curtains of fine linen about eight feet high, suspended on brazen or copper pillars. Those curtains were secured by rods fastened to the top, and kept extended by being fastened to pins stuck in the ground.
10. hooks—The hooks of the pillars in the court were for hanging up the carcasses of the sacrificial beasts—those on the pillars at the entry of the tabernacle were for hanging the sacerdotal robes and other things used in the service.
11. sockets—mortices or holes in which the end of the pillars stood.
17. chapiters—or capitals of the pillars, were wooden posts which ran along their top, to which were attached the hooks for the hangings.
18. the height in the breadth—or, "in the measure." The sense is that the hangings of the court gate, which was twenty cubits wide, were of the same height as the hangings all round the court [Wall].
21. This is the sum of the tabernacle—Having completed his description of the component parts of the tabernacle, the inspired historian digresses into a statement respecting the gold and silver employed in it, the computation being made according to an order of Moses—by the Levites, under the direction of Ithamar, Aaron's youngest son.
24. twenty and nine talents, and seven hundred and thirty shekels—equivalent to £150,00 sterling.
25. the silver of them that were numbered—603,550 men at half a shekel each would contribute 301,775 shekels; which at 2s. 4d. each, amounts to £35,207 sterling. It may seem difficult to imagine how the Israelites should be possessed of so much wealth in the desert; but it should be remembered that they were enriched first by the spoils of the Egyptians, and afterwards by those of the Amalekites. Besides, it is highly probable that during their sojourn they traded with the neighboring nations who bordered on the wilderness [Hewlett].