As Yahweh Commanded Moses
32 Thus all the work of the tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting was finished. The children of Israel did according to all that Yahweh commanded Moses; so they did. 33 They brought the tabernacle to Moses: the tent, with all its furniture, its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars, its sockets, 34 the covering of rams’ skins dyed red, the covering of sea cow hides, the veil of the screen, 35 the ark of the covenant with its poles, the mercy seat, 36 the table, all its vessels, the show bread, 37 the pure lamp stand, its lamps, even the lamps to be set in order, all its vessels, the oil for the light, 38 the golden altar, the anointing oil, the sweet incense, the screen for the door of the Tent, 39 the bronze altar, its grating of bronze, its poles, all of its vessels, the basin and its base, 40 the hangings of the court, its pillars, its sockets, the screen for the gate of the court, its cords, its pins, and all the instruments of the service of the tabernacle, for the Tent of Meeting, 41 the finely worked garments for ministering in the holy place, the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments of his sons, to minister in the priest’s office. 42 According to all that Yahweh commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did all the work. 43 Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it as Yahweh had commanded. They had done so; and Moses blessed them.
The finished work is brought for inspection, and the sentence used of it is the sentence used of creation.
They brought the tabernacle to Moses: the tent, with all its furniture, its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars, its sockets,
Everything is carried to one man and laid out for examination — the tent, the boards, the coverings, the ark, the table, the lampstand, both altars, the court, the garments. The inventory runs ten verses and omits nothing.
According to all that Yahweh commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did all the work.
Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it as Yahweh had commanded. They had done so; and Moses blessed them.
The verbs are those of the first chapter of Genesis. God saw all that he had made; here Moses sees all the work. God blessed; Moses blesses. A structure is being finished, inspected and blessed in the same terms as a world.
The difference is worth stating too. Creation was made and pronounced good by the one who made it. This was made by people who had failed catastrophically halfway through, out of materials handed to them by a country that had enslaved them, to a pattern they did not design. What is blessed is not their achievement but their obedience, and the text credits exactly that: they had done it as Yahweh had commanded.
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