himself to this purpose: The mystery of the tabernacle was this, that it was to be a place for the shechinah, or habitation of Divinity, to be fixed in;' and this, no doubt, as a special type of God's future dwelling in Christ's human nature, which was the TRUE SHECHINAH: but when the Jews were come into their land, and had there built them houses, God intended to have a fixed dwelling-house also; and therefore his moyable tabernacle was to be turned into a standing temple. Now the tabernacle or temple, being thus as a house for God to dwell in visibly, to make up the notion of dwelling or habitation complete there must be all things suitable to a house belonging to it; hence, in the holy place, there must be a table, and a candlestick, because this was the ordinary furniture of a room, as the fore-commended Nachmanides observes. The table must have its dishes, and spoons, and bowls, and covers belonging to it, though they were never used; and always be furnished with bread upon it. The candlestick must have its lamps continually burning. Hence also there must be a continual fire kept in this house of God upon the altar, as the focus of it; to which notion I conceive the Prophet Isaiah doth allude, chap. xxxi. 9 Whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem; and besides all this, to carry the notion still farther, there must be some constant meat and provision brought into this house; which was done in the sacrifices that were partly consumed by fire upon God's own altar, and partly eaten by the priests, who were God's family, and therefore to be maintained by him. That which was consumed upon God's altar was accounted God's mess, as appeareth from Mal. i. 12, where the altar is called God's table, and the sacrifice upon it, God's meat: Ye say, The table of the LORD is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even HIS MEAT, is contemptible. And often, in the law, the sacrifice is called God's on lechem, i. e., his bread or food. Wherefore it is farther observable, that besides the flesh of the beast offered up in sacrifice, there was a minchah, i. e., a meat-offering, or rather bread-offering, made of flour and oil; and a libamen or drink-offering, which was always joined with the daily sacrifice, as the bread and drink which was to go along with God's meat. It was also strictly commanded that there should be salt in every sacrifice and oblation, because all meat

for the shew-bread.

A. M. 2513. B. C. 1491.

27 Over against the border shall the rings be for places An. Exod. Isr. 1. of the staves to bear the table.

Sivan.

28 And thou shalt make the staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be borne with them.

29 And thou shalt make the dishes thereof, and spoons thereof, and covers thereof, and bowls thereof, to cover withal: of pure gold shalt thou make them.

30 And thou shalt set upon the table a shewbread before me alway.

is unsavoury without salt, as Nachmanides hath here also well observed; 'because it was not honourable that God's meat should be unsavoury, without salt.' Lastly, all these things were to be consumed on the altar only by the holy fire which came down from heaven, because they were God's portion, and therefore to be eaten or consumed by himself in an extraordinary manner.” See on ver. 22.

Verse 29. The dishes thereof] p kearothai, probably the deep bowls in which they kneaded the mass out of which they made the shew-bread.

And spoons thereof] In cappothaiv, probably censers, on which they put up the incense; as seems pretty evident from Num. vii. 14, 20, 26, 32, 38, 44, 50, 56, 62, 68, 74, 80, 86, where the same word is used, and the instrument, whatever it was, is always represented as being filled with incense.

Covers thereof op kesothaiv, supposed to be a large cup or tankard, in which pure wine was kept on the table along with the shew-bread for libations, which were poured out before the Lord every Sabbath, when the old bread was removed, and the new bread laid on the table.

Bowls thereof] лp menakkiyothaiv, from p nakah, to clear away, remove, empty, &c.; supposed by Calmet to mean, either the sieves by which the Levites cleansed the wheat they made into bread, (for it is asserted that the grain, out of which the shew-bread was made, was sowed, reaped, ground, sifted, kneaded, baked, &c., by the Levites themselves,) or the ovens in which the bread was baked. Others suppose they were vessels which they dipped into the kesoth, to take out the wine for libations.

Verse 30. Shew-bread] on lechem panim, literally, bread of faces; so called, either because they were placed before the presence or face of God in the sanctuary, or because they were made square, as the Jews will have it. It is probable that they were in the form of cubes or hexaedrons, each side presenting the same appearance; and hence the Jews might suppose they were called the bread or loaves of faces: but the Hebrew text seems to intimate that they were called the bread of faces, DD panim, because, as the Lord says, they were set 'lephanai, before my FACE. These loaves or cakes were twelve, representing, as is

thereof and they shall light they shall light | An. Exod. Isr. 1. the lamps thereof, that they may give light over against it.

Sivan.

е

38 And the tongs thereof, and the snuffdishes thereof, shall be of pure gold.

Chap. xxvii. 21; xxx. 8; Lev. xxiv. 3, 4; 2 Chron. xiii. 11. d Or, cause to ascend.e Num. viii. 2.- Heb. the face of it. and themselves to captivity and to the sword. The heathens then carried away the emblems of their salvation, and God shortly gave unto those heathens that very salvation of which these things were the emblems! Thus, because of their unbelief and rebellion, the kingdom of heaven, according to the prediction of our blessed Lord, was taken from the Jews, and given to a nation (the Gentiles) that brought forth the fruits thereof; Matt. xxi. 43. Behold the GOODNESS and SEVERITY of God!

Verse 39. Of a talent of pure gold shall he make it, with all these vessels.] That is, a talent of gold in weight was used in making the candlestick, and the different vessels and instruments which belonged to it. According to Bishop Cumberland, a talent was three thousand shekels. As the Israelites brought each half a shekel, chap. xxxviii. 26, so that one hundred talents, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels, were contributed by six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty persons; by halving the number of the Israelites, he finds they contributed three hundred and one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels in all. Now, as we find that this number of shekels made one hundred talents, and one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels over, if we subtract one thousand seven hundred and seventyfive, the odd shekels, from three hundred and one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, we shall have for a remainder three hundred thousand, the number of shekels in one hundred talents and if this remainder be divided by one hundred, the number of talents, it quotes three thousand, the number of shekels in each talent. A silver shekel of the sanctuary, being equal, according to Dr. Prideaux, to three shillings English, three thousand such shekels will amount to four hundred and fifty pounds sterling; and, reckoning gold to silver as fifteen to one, a talent of gold will amount to six thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds sterling: to which add two hundred and sixtythree pounds for the one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels, at three shillings each, and it makes a total of seven thousand and thirteen pounds, which immense sum was expended on the candlestick and its furniture. It is no wonder, then, (if the candlestick in the second temple was equal in value to that in the ancient tabernacle,) that Titus should think it of sufficient consequence to be one of the articles, with the golden table, and silver trumpets, that should be employed to grace his triumph. Their intrinsic worth was a matter of no consequence to Him whose are the silver and gold, the earth and its fulness; they had accomplished their design, and were of no farther use, either in the kingdom of providence, or the kingdom of grace. See the note on ver. 31, and see that

on chap. xxxviii. 24.

with its utensils.

39 Of a talent of pure gold shall

A. M. 2513. B. C. 1491.

Sivan.

he make it, with all these vessels. An Exod. Isr. I. 40 And look that thou make them after their pattern, h which was showed thee in the mount.

Chap. xxvi. 30; Num. viii. 4; 1 Chron. xxviii. II, 19; Acts vii. 44; Heb. viii. 5.- h Heb. which thou wast caused to see.

Verse 40. And look that thou make, &c.] This verse should be understood as an order to Moses after the tabernacle, &c., had been described to him; as if he had said: "When thou comest to make all the things that I have already described to thee, with the other matters of which I shall afterwards treat, see that thou make every thing according to the pattern which thou didst see in the mount." The Septuagint have it, κατα τον τύπον τον δεδειγμένον σοι according to the TYPE-form or fashion, which was shown thee. It appears to me that St. Paul had this command particularly in view when he gave that to his son Timothy which we find in the second epistle, chap. i. 13: Υποτυπωσιν εχε ύγιαινόντων λόγων, ών παρ' εμου ηκούoas. "Hold fast the FORM of sound words which thou hast heard of me." The tabernacle was a type of the Church of God; that Church is built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ being the chief corner-stone, Eph. ii. 20–22: the doctrines, therefore, delivered by the prophets, Jesus Christ, and his apostles, are essential to the constitution of this Church. As God, therefore, gave the plan or form according to which the tabernacle must be constructed, so he gives the doctrines according to which the Christian Church is to be modelled; and apostles, and subordinate builders, are to have and hold fast that FORM of sound words, and construct this heavenly building according to that form or pattern which has come through the express revelation of God.

IN different parts of this work we have had occasion to remark that the heathens borrowed their best things from Divine revelation, both as it refers to what was pure in their doctrines, and significant in their religious rites. Indeed, they seem in many cases to have studied the closest imitation possible, consistent with the adaptation of all to their preposterous and idolatrous worship. They had their Iao or Jove, in imitation of the truè JEHOVAH; and from different attributes of the Divine Nature they formed an innumerable group of gods and goddesses. They had also their temples in imitation of the temple of God; and in these they had their holy and more holy places, in imitation of the courts of the Lord's house. The heathen temples consisted of several parts or divisions: 1. The area or porch; 2. The vaos or temple, similar to the nave of our churches; 3. The adytum or holy place, called also penetrale and sacrarium; and, 4. The onio0odoμos or the inner temple, the most secret recess, where they had their mysteria, and which answered to the holy of holies in the tabernacle. And as there is no evidence whatever that there was any temple among the heathens prior to the tabernacle, it is reasonable to conclude that it served as a model for all that they afterwards built. They had even their portable

The heathens borrowed many

temples, to imitate the tabernacle; and the shrines for Diana, mentioned Acts xix. 24, were of this kind. They had even their arks or sacred coffers, where they kept their most holy things, and the mysterious emblems of their religion; together with candlesticks or lamps, to illuminate their temples, which had few windows, to imitate the golden candlestick in the Mosaie tabernacle. They had even their processions, in imitation of the carrying about of the ark in the wilderness; accompanied by such ceremonies as sufficiently show, to an unprejudiced mind, that they borrowed them from this sacred original. Dr. Dodd has a good note on this subject, which I shall take the liberty to extraet.

Speaking of the ark, he says," We meet with imitations of this Divinely instituted emblem among several heathen nations, Thus Tacitus, De Moribus Germanorum, cap. 40, informs us that the inhabitants of the north of Germany, our Saxon ancestors, in general worshipped Herthum or Hertham, i. e. the mother earth: Hertham being plainly derived from Parets, earth, and DN am, mother: and they believed her to interpose in the affairs of men, and to visit nations that to her, in a sacred grove in a certain island, of the ocean, a vehicle covered with a vestment was consecrated, and allowed to be touched by the priests only, (compare 2 Sam. vi. 6, 7; 1 Chron. xiii. 9, 10,) who perceived when the goddess entered into her secret place, penetrale, and with profound veneration attended her vehicle, which was drawn by cores; see 1 Sam. vi. 7-10. While the goddess was on her progress, days of rejoicing were kept in every place which she vouchsafed to visit; they engaged in no war, they handled no weapons; peace and quietness were then only known, only relished, till the same priest reconducted the goddess to her temple. Then the vehicle and vest ment, and, if you can believe it, the goddess herself, were washed in a sacred lake."

Apuleius, De Aur. Asin., lib. ii., describing a solemn idolatrous procession, after the Egyptian mode, says, “A chest, or ark, was carried by another, containing their secret things, entirely concealing the mysteries of religion."

And Plutarch, in his treatise De Iside, &c., describing the rites of Osiris, says, "On the tenth day of the month, at night, they go down to the sea; and the stolists, together with the priest, carry forth the sacred chest, in which is a small boat or yessel of gold." Pausanius likewise testifies, lib. vii, c. 19, that the ancient Trojans had a sacred ark, wherein was the image of BACCHUS, made by Vulcan, which had been given to Dardanus by Jupiter. As the ark was deposited in the holy of holies, so the heathens had in the inmost part of their temples an adytum or penetrale, to which none had access but the priests. And it is VOL. I. (. 29. )

sacred rites from the Hebrews.

remarkable that, among the Mexicans, Vitzliputzli, their supreme god, was represented under a human shape, sitting on a throne, supported by an azure globe which they called heaven; four poles or sticks came out from two sides of this globe, at the end of which serpents' heads were carved, the whole making a litter which the priests carried on their shoulders whenever the idol was shown in public.-Religious Ceremonies, vol. iij., p. 146.

Calmet remarks that the ancients used to dedicate candlesticks in the temples of their gods, bearing a great number of lamps.

Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxiv, c. 3, mentions one made in the form of a tree, with lamps in the likeness of apples, which Alexander the Great consecrated in the temple of Apollo.

And Athenæus, lib. xv., c. 19, 20, mentions one that supported three hundred and sixty-five lamps, which Dionysius the younger, king of Syracuse, dedicated in the Prytaneum at Athens. As the Egyptians, according to the testimony of Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom., lib. i., were the first who used lamps in their temples, they probably borrowed the use from the golden candlestick in the tabernacle and temple.

From the solemn and very particular charge, Look that thou make them after their pattern, which_was showed thee in the mount, it appears plainly that God showed Moses a model of the tabernacle and all its furniture; and to receive instructions relative to this was one part of his employment while on the mount forty days with God. As God designed that this building, and all that belonged to it, should be patterns or representations of good things to come, it was indispensably necessary that Moses should receive a model and specification of the whole, according to which he might direct the different artificers in their constructing the work. 1. We may observe that the whole tabernacle and its furniture resembled a dwelling-house and its furniture. 2. That this tabernacle was the house of God, not merely for the, performance of his worship, but for his residence. 3. That God had promised to dwell among this people, and this was the habitation which he appointed for his glory. 4. That the tabernacle, as well as the temple, was a type of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. See John i. 14, and ii. 19, 21. 5. That as the glory of God was manifested between the cherubim, above the mercy-seat, in this tabernacle, so God was in Christ, and in him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 6. As in the tabernacle were found bread, light, &c., probably all these were emblematical of the ample provision made in Christ for the direction, support, and salvation of the soul of man. Of these, and many other things in the law and the prophets, we shall know more when mortality is swallowed up of life.

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