Creation and Recreation

CJ Labuschagne points out in his Numerical Secrets of the Bible that “Exod 39:32–43 tells how the Tabernacle with all its equipment was presented to Moses, who inspected all the work and saw that the craftsmen had done their work according to the command of the Lord, and he blessed them (verse 43). This is a clear allusion to what is said in Genesis: having performed his last act of creation, ‘God saw all he had made, and it was very good’ (Gen 1:31), and in 2:3 that God rested on the seventh day, and blessed the day and made it holy. The analogy between Moses’ seeing what he had accomplished and his blessing, on the one hand, and God’s seeing what he had accomplished and his blessing, on the other, is unmistakable” (45).

The fact that this creation reference is embedded in a sevenfold structure reinforces the allusion (45):

1. as the Lord commanded Moses (vestments), 39:1
2. as the Lord commanded Moses (ephod), 39:5
3. as the Lord commanded Moses (cornelians), 39:7
4. as the Lord commanded Moses (breastpiece), 39:21
5. as the Lord commanded Moses (ephod-mantle), 39:26
6. as the Lord commanded Moses (tunics), 39:29
7. as the Lord commanded Moses (medallion), 39:31

The chapter concludes with three additional statements about Moses’ obedience to God’s word, phrased differently, but making a total of ten words. As Labuschagne says, this structure of “ten divine utterances introduced by the stereotyped formula ‘God said’ in the Creation narrative was used by the author of the Tabernacle passage as a model to give structure to the material in Exodus 39. What we have here is yet another allusion to the analogy between the work done by Moses in regards the Tabernacle, and God’s activities in creating the world. Just as God spoke ten times in getting the world and life on earth going, so Moses is said ten times to have obediently carried out God’s instructions to get the Tabernacle ready and to initiate the temple-cult” (46).

The remarkable discontinuity is that Moses rather that Yahweh sees and blesses. The Moses who became a “god to Pharaoh” also plays a divine role among the Israelites, horned with divine glory, ascending to the cloud, seeing and blessing. Yahweh spoke the worlds into being without our aid; He speaks new creation into being through Moses’ obedience to that creating Word.