Exodus 35:4-29--Contributions for the Tabernacle

Contributions for the Tabernacle​
4 Moses said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, “This is the thing that the Lord has commanded. 5 Take from among you a contribution to the Lord. Whoever is of a generous heart, let him bring the Lord's contribution: gold, silver, and bronze; 6 blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen; goats' hair, 7 tanned rams' skins, and goatskins; acacia wood, 8 oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, 9 and onyx stones and stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece.

10 “Let every skillful craftsman among you come and make all that the Lord has commanded: 11 the tabernacle, its tent and its covering, its hooks and its frames, its bars, its pillars, and its bases; 12 the ark with its poles, the mercy seat, and the veil of the screen; 13 the table with its poles and all its utensils, and the bread of the Presence; 14 the lampstand also for the light, with its utensils and its lamps, and the oil for the light; 15 and the altar of incense, with its poles, and the anointing oil and the fragrant incense, and the screen for the door, at the door of the tabernacle; 16 the altar of burnt offering, with its grating of bronze, its poles, and all its utensils, the basin and its stand; 17 the hangings of the court, its pillars and its bases, and the screen for the gate of the court; 18 the pegs of the tabernacle and the pegs of the court, and their cords; 19 the finely worked garments for ministering in the Holy Place, the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments of his sons, for their service as priests.”

20 Then all the congregation of the people of Israel departed from the presence of Moses. 21 And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit moved him, and brought the Lord's contribution to be used for the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the holy garments. 22 So they came, both men and women. All who were of a willing heart brought brooches and earrings and signet rings and armlets, all sorts of gold objects, every man dedicating an offering of gold to the Lord. 23 And every one who possessed blue or purple or scarlet yarns or fine linen or goats' hair or tanned rams' skins or goatskins brought them. 24 Everyone who could make a contribution of silver or bronze brought it as the Lord's contribution. And every one who possessed acacia wood of any use in the work brought it. 25 And every skillful woman spun with her hands, and they all brought what they had spun in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen. 26 All the women whose hearts stirred them to use their skill spun the goats' hair. 27 And the leaders brought onyx stones and stones to be set, for the ephod and for the breastpiece, 28 and spices and oil for the light, and for the anointing oil, and for the fragrant incense. 29 All the men and women, the people of Israel, whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done brought it as a freewill offering to the Lord.

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God had provided Moses with the plans and with the project managers, but where would the labor force and the material resources come from?  God had already made provision for all of that too!  We see the call to the people to donate everything that God had instructed would be needed to make the Tabernacle and the people responded with a heart of generosity.  Again though, where did they get this stuff to donate?  They got it from the Egyptians when they were given the great wealth of Egypt to encourage them to leave and leave quickly after the tenth plague.

33 The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We shall all be dead.” 34 So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. 35 The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. 36 And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.  (Exodus 12:33-36)

There it is!  God had already given them everything He knew they needed to build the Tabernacle far ahead of time.  But how had they used it so far?  They had worn the earrings and other ornaments in the same way that their masters had in Egypt to show their wealth and their power now.  They had used the riches of the Egyptians to make a golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai like the ones that they had probably seen and maybe even worshiped while they were slaves in Egypt.  This was not what God had wanted for His people, and we already saw the people remove their ornaments and jewelry  as a sign of the removal of their pride after God had said He would not go up among them because they were a stubborn and stiff-necked people and He might consume them on the way up.  In fact, the text tells us that they promised they would never again put on this jewelry for the rest of their journey through the wilderness to the land of Canaan (We'll see how that goes as we continue our study.  Will they really put aside their greed that helped fuel their pagan worship, or will they keep it close to them so that they can come back to it for comfort like keeping a mistress even after getting married?)

This is one of the "bright spots" in the history of Israel though.  Their hearts appear to be in the right place, they want to give God everything He is owed to glorify His great name, and they simply desire to live in the presence of God and to not go anywhere where He won't go with them.  For as much as we focus on what the Israelites (especially this generation of Israelites) did wrong, they got some things very right.  Their contributions were so over the top here that Moses will actually have to ask them to stop bringing their contributions--but, again, it's not just the treasure they are bringing, but they are giving of themselves by giving their time and talent as well (all of which also belongs to God).

So, what is there for us to take away from this passage today?  First is the fact that God has a plan for everything He's provided for you, and that plan is not for you to glorify yourself or to use to worship false gods--it is meant to use in some way to bring glory and honor to Him.  That "wealth" He has given to you may also come in the form of time and talent, it need not be physical possessions, but all of it comes from God and belongs to Him--even the wealth that we thought we plundered from those who had enslaved us.

At certain points it is seems like the people got caught up in materialism and because they thought they owned the stuff (instead of remembering that God owned all) then it seemed like their stuff owned them.  It's a dangerous trap that the flesh and the devil lay for us--as we seek to own more stuff it requires more and more of our time, talent, and even treasure and we end up worshiping our stuff and it ends up owning us.  It is only through God's design of us being cheerful givers that we can fight off this urge to become materialistic.  This is so large of an issue that Jesus talked about it in the Sermon on the Mount (this teaching is recorded in Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13--"...You cannot serve God and money.")  Since not every culture has "money," it's probably better to look at that word as "wealth" as some people are rich in land, cattle, etc--see the book of Job for instance as it appears that his wealth was measured by his land and the size of his herds and flocks.  There is more to stewardship than the digits in your bank account, the size of your investment portfolio (stocks, bonds, etc) and how much money you have on you at any moment in time.

God's timing is not our own and He often provides the means before we know the purpose.  Trust Him to reveal the purpose that He has planned and prepared for that will glorify and honor Him and "lean not on your own understanding."  What if people had not waited for God and wanted to build God a dwelling place with the things they had?  Do you think it would have been anything like what God had designed to show the people that God would get up and move with them or do you think that they would have constructed a temple much like their pagan neighbors attached to a physical place where they thought God rested (maybe a Mount Sinai/Mount Horeb for instance) and they would believe that God's presence was limited to that physical place and that something about the place made God strong there..  That's the way the pagans believed, but God would come back in Joshua 1:9 and remind Joshua that "The LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

Also, don't forget that, although they don't know this, the people are building a model of the gospel message for them to look at each and every time they set up, tear down, and worship at the Tabernacle--it was God's plan for His people there, it was God's plan for Jesus coming in the flesh, it's God's plan now for His Spirit to live in and through us as tabernacles and it's His ultimate plan for all of His people to one day live with Him in the Most Holy Place of The New Jerusalem.  Remember that we always worship at a person and not a place and we worship both individually and corporately.  The people gave freewill offerings here as an act of worship that was both individual and corporate and God would use those offerings to provide a framework for both individual and corporate worship for many generations to come.