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13 And thou shalt put upon Aaron the holy garments, m and anoint him, and sanctify him; that he may minister unto me in the priest's office.

14 And thou shalt bring his sons, and clothe them with coats:

15 And thou shalt anoint them, as thou didst anoint their father, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office: for their anointing shall surely be an neverlasting priest-hood throughout their generations.

16 Thus did Moses; according to all that the LORD commanded him, so did he.

17 And it came to pass in the first month, in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was reared up.

18 And Moses reared up the tabernacle, and fastened his sockets. and set up the boards thereof, and put in the bars thereof, and reared up his pillars.

19 And he spread abroad the tent over the tabernacle, and put the covering of the tent above upon it; as the LORD commanded Moses.

20 ¶ And he took and put p the testimony into the ark, and set the staves on the ark, and put the mercy-seat above upon the ark:

21 And he brought the ark into the tabernacle, and a set up the

vail of the covering, and covered the ark of the testimony; as the LORD commanded Moses.

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22 And he put the table in the tent of the congregation upon the side of the tabernacle northward, without the vail.

23 $ And he set the bread in order upon it before the LORD; as the LORD had commanded Moses. 24 And he put the candlestick in the tent of the congregation, over against the table, on the side of the tabernacle southward.

25 And he lighted the lamps before the LORD, as the LORD commanded Moses.

26 y And he put the golden altar in the tent of the congregation, before the vail:

27 z And he burnt sweet incense thereon; as the LORD commanded Moses.

28a And he set up the hanging at the door of the tabernacle.

29 b And he put the altar of burntoffering by the door of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation, and coffered upon it the burnt-offering, and the meat-offering; as the LORD commanded Moses.

30 And he set the laver be tween the tent of the congregation

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m ch. 28. 41. n Numb. 25. 13. o ver. 1. 36. b ver. 6. Numb. 7. 1. P ch. 25. 16. ch. 30. 18.

Church which was to be established at the end of the seventy weeks, and which was anointed at its setting up by the Holy Spirit in his miraculous effusion on the day of Pentecost.

15. Their anointing shall be an everlasting priesthood. The meaning is, that as far as the common priests were concerned, the efficacy of this first anointing should extend to the whole future line, so that they need not from

one generation to another receive successively the consecrating unction. With the High Priest the case was different. As he was elected, it was fit that he should, upon entering into office, be anointed; but in regard to the ordinary priests, who inherited their office as their birthright, the same necessity did not exist.

26. And he put the golden altar in the tents of the congregation. Of the gen

and the altar, and put water there, to wash withal.

31 And Moses, and Aaron, and his sons, washed their hands and their feet thereat:

32 When they went into the tent of the congregation, and when they came near unto the altar, they

washed; as the LORD commanded Moses.

33 f And he reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the hanging of the court-gate: so Moses finished the work.

e ch. 30. 19. f ver. 8. ch. 27. 9. 16.

eral aspect of the interior of the taber- ly arranged, a tolerably correct idea may nacle, when all its furniture was proper- be formed from the accompanying cut.

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33. And he reared up the court round | to present to the eye the general ap

about the tabernacle, &c. As all the particulars have been formerly explained, nothing more is here necessary than

pearance of the tabernacle with the court, altar, and laver; the whole surmounted by the pillar of cloud.

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34. Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation. Rather according to the Hebrew literally translated, the cloud' (heanan) that is, the cloudy pillar, or cloud of the Shekinah, which had previously abode for many weeks on the summit of the mountain, and which had subsequently descended upon Moses' tent and stood before the door of it, as mentioned, ch. 33. 9. This sublime cloud now removed from its former station and stood at first not only over, but around the tabernacle, completely covering or enwrapping it in its sombre folds while inner unseen Glory, after first filling the outer room, entered and took its station in the Most Holy Place between the Cherubim.

The glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. That is, the visible sign or

symbol of the Lord's glorious presence. 'By this Glory was signified,' says Maimonides 'a certain created splendor which God caused miraculously to dwell any where for the purpose of manifesting forth his majesty.' Abrabanel on this passage speaks still more distinctly; 'Behold, it is clear that the Glory of the Lord was not a cloud, but something in respect to light and splendor like unto fire. A cloud, however, was round about it, as smoke is always about a fire; and as burning lamps (or lightnings) appear from the midst of clouds, so was the Glory of the Lord like to fire in the midst of the cloud and the darkness. In this august manner God took formal possession of the house which had been prepared for his residence. All things having been duly

made ready, the great and glorious Occupant now makes a solemn entry into the habitation in which he had promised to dwell, and of which he now virtually says, 'This is the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever.' By this act Jehovah not only testified the restoration of his forfeited favor to the people, and his gracious acceptance of their services, but also gave typically a pledge of the future tabernacling of Christ, the true Shekinah, in human flesh, and of an ulterior visible manifestation of the divine glory in the latter days on the earth. This latter great event is distinctly foreshown in the following passages in language bearing evident allusion to that of Moses in the narrative before us; Ezek. 43, 4, 5, 'And the Glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east. So the Spirit took me up and brought me into the inner court; and behold the Glory of the Lord filled the house.' John also in the Revelation, chap. 21. 10, 11, alluding to the same illustrious period of the church, says, 'And he carried me in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God; having the Glory of God. For ourselves we think it deserving of the most serious and profound enquiry, whether this 'glory to be revealed' be not a another term for the whole heavenly world composed of the glorified spiritual bodies of Christ and his saints, together with his holy angels, coming down to enter into a new and abiding connexion with the church on earth in its latter-day prosperity. To what else can it refer? Our Savior expressly assured his disciples that 'hereafter they should see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending, upon the Son of Man.' Equally explicit is the declara

tion of John in the Apocalypse, ch. 21. 3, And I heard a great voice from heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his people; and God himself shall be with them, and shall be their God.' As the glory of the Shekinah came in all its effulgence and took possession of the tabernacle when it was prepared for its reception, so when the earth, by the previous outpouring of the Spirit and the universal diffusion and establishment of the gospel shall have become fitted for the divine inhabitation, are we not taught to expect that the glorified Savior and the glorified saved-the substance of the resplendent Cloud and the shining Cherubim of the most holy place-shall come and fix themselves in permanent sojourn in the temple thus prepared for them? Not that we are to understand this as implying that the glorified saints will ever be promiscuously mingled together with the tenants of earth, the dwellers in houses of clay and houses of wood or stone, but simply that there will be a visible communication and an intimate relation between these two great departments of the Lord's family. We have no reason to suppose that spiritual bodies will ever inhabit material tenements on the earth, but as there was at the birth of Christ a sudden and glorious manifestation of a multitude of the heavenly host in the air, so we are perhaps taught that a similar developement of the invisible world will be made and become permanent in the latter day, abiding in immediate proximity to our globe, and thus giving its ultimate fulfilment to the dream of Jacob of an angelic intercourse between heaven and earth. In this state of things, the separating veil between the holy and the most place, will be done away. The cherubim will be 'living creatures' and pass freely out into the outer room. Sure we are, that if these predictions do not announce the

35 And Moses h was not able to | gation, because the cloud abode enter into the tent of the congreh Lev. 16. 2. 1 Kings 8. 11. 2 Chron, 14. 5.

thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.

sublime event now suggested, as they dedication of the temple of Solomon, plainly point to some fulfilment of stu- when, we are told, 1 Kings, 8. 10, 11, pendous character, it behoves the in- 'The cloud filled the house of the Lord; terpreters of the oracles of God to in- so that the priests could not stand to form an inquiring world what they do minister because of the cloud, for the mean. It is impossible to be faithful glory of the Lord had filled the house to the entrusted truth of heaven, and of the Lord.' A palpable allusion to permit its most sublime revelations to this incident is also to be recognised in lie shrouded in obscurity under the idle | Rev. 15. 7, 8, although the meaning of plea that they are a part of prophecy, the prophecy is too profound to be and that prophecy was not designed to hastily decided upon; 'And one of the be understood till it is accomplished. four beasts gave unto the seven angels Not indeed that we would maintain seven golden vials full of the wrath of that prophecy can be equally well un- God, who liveth for ever and ever. derstood before and after its accom- And the temple was filled with smoke plishment, but if it be unintelligible, from the glory of God, and from his why are we exhorted to study it? The power; and no man was able to enter truth is, the prophecies touch the very into the temple, till the seven plagues vital doctrines of Christianity. Its grand of the seven angels were fulfilled.' sanctions-its promises of bliss and its Moses was obliged to wait till the overthreatenings of woe-the judgment, the whelming brightness had somewhat resurrection, and the New Jerusalem-abated, and the Glory had retired withare inseparably interwoven with the fulfilment of the great chain of scriptural prophecy; and we doubt not the time is not far distant when the interests of truth will imperiously demand that the mysteries of the Apocalypse shall be unfolded.

35. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, &c. The glory of the Shekinah shone so bright and dazzling, that it was abso lutely insufferable to the sight. Indeed, as the phenomenon was in effect the same with that which appeared on the summit of Sinai, and of which it is said, Ex. 24. 16, that the part of it covered by the cloud, when partially exposed to view, was like unto 'devouring fire,' the tabernacle could not now be entered for the same reason that the cloud could not then have been entered, even by Moses, without a special summons to that effect from Jehovah himself. Precisely the same thing happened at the

in the veil. That these circumstances
were designed to point forward to some
grand accomplishment of far more illus-
trious character, in the state described
in the closing chapters of Ezekiel and
John, when the divine Glory shall again
take
up its abode on earth, we have no
doubt. But as the precise manner of
its ultimate fulfilment appears to be
hidden by a veil at present inscrutable,
we are thrown upon a moral improve-
ment of the occurrence, upon which no
mystery rests. It affords another in-
timation how awful and terrible is the
majesty of Jehovah when he is pleased
to reveal himself to human eyes. How
impossible it was for Moses to behold
it without a screen, we have already had
occasion to notice. The greatest and
the best of men are utterly unable to
stand before it. 'Our God is a consum-
ing fire.' How thankful then are we
called to be, that we may contemplate
the softened glories of the Godhead in

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