Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Exodus · About this commentary
As Yahweh Commanded Moses
Exodus 39:32-43
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. · WEB
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 Exodus 39:33.
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 Exodus 39:42.
Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it as Yahweh had commanded. They had done so; and Moses blessed them Exodus 39:43.
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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