16 You shall put the testimony which I shall give you into the ark.
Take this book of the law, and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of Yahweh your God, that it may be there for a witness against you.
having a golden altar of incense, and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which was a golden pot holding the manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant;
As Yahweh commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept.
I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark. So I made an ark of acacia wood, and hewed two tables of stone like the first, and went up onto the mountain, having the two tables in my hand. He wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which Yahweh spoke to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and Yahweh gave them to me. I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they are as Yahweh commanded me.
"Our fathers had the tent of the testimony in the wilderness, even as he who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern that he had seen;
When they brought out the money that was brought into the house of Yahweh, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of Yahweh [given] by Moses. Hilkiah answered Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of Yahweh. Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan.
In the tent of meeting, outside the veil which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall keep it in order from evening to morning before Yahweh: it shall be a statute forever throughout their generations on the behalf of the children of Israel.
You shall lay them up in the tent of meeting before the testimony, where I meet with you.
It happened, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mountain, that Moses didn't know that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him.
Moses turned, and went down from the mountain, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand; tablets that were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other they were written.
and you shall beat some of it very small, and put some of it before the testimony in the tent of meeting, where I will meet with you. It shall be to you most holy.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Exodus 25
Commentary on Exodus 25 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 25
At this chapter begins an account of the orders and instructions God gave to Moses upon the mount for the erecting and furnishing of a tabernacle to the honour of God. We have here.
Exd 25:1-9
We may suppose that when Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and abode there so long, where the holy angels attended the shechinah, or divine Majesty, he saw and heard very glorious things relating to the upper world, but they were things which it was not lawful nor possible to utter; and therefore, in the records he kept of the transactions there, he says nothing to satisfy the curiosity of those who would intrude into the things which they have not seen, but writes that only which he was to speak to the children of Israel. For the scripture is designed to direct us in our duty, not to fill our heads with speculations, nor to please our fancies.
In these verses God tells Moses his intention in general, that the children of Israel should build him a sanctuary, for he designed to dwell among them (v. 8); and some think that, though there were altars and groves used for religious worship before this, yet there never was any house, or temple, built for sacred uses in any nation before this tabernacle was erected by Moses, and that all the temples which were afterwards so much celebrated among the heathen took rise from this and pattern by it. God had chosen the people of Israel to be a peculiar people to himself (above all people), among whom divine revelation, and a religion according to it, should be lodged and established: he himself would be their King. As their King, he had already given them laws for the government of themselves, and their dealings one with another, with some general rules for religious worship, according to the light of reason and the law of nature, in the ten commandments and the following comments upon them. But this was not thought sufficient to distinguish them from other nations, or to answer to the extent of that covenant which God would make with them to be their God; and therefore,
Exd 25:10-22
The first thing which is here ordered to be made is the ark with its appurtenances, the furniture of the most holy place, and the special token of God's presence, for which the tabernacle was erected to be the receptacle.
Exd 25:23-30
Here is,
Exd 25:31-40