How To Build A Replica Of The Garden Of Eden In Your Backyard
Exodus 25:1-40
25 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel, that they take for me a contribution. From every man whose heart moves him you shall receive the contribution for me. 3 And this is the contribution that you shall receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze, 4 blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, goats' hair, 5 tanned rams' skins, goatskins, acacia wood, 6 oil for the lamps, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, 7 onyx stones, and stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece. 8 And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. 9 Exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle, and of all its furniture, so you shall make it.
10 “They shall make an ark of acacia wood. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. 11 You shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and outside shall you overlay it, and you shall make on it a molding of gold around it. 12 You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it. 13 You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. 14 And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark by them. 15 The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it. 16 And you shall put into the ark the testimony that I shall give you.
17 “You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth. 18 And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. 19 Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. 20 The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. 21 And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. 22 There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.
23 “You shall make a table of acacia wood. Two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. 24 You shall overlay it with pure gold and make a molding of gold around it. 25 And you shall make a rim around it a handbreadth wide, and a molding of gold around the rim. 26 And you shall make for it four rings of gold, and fasten the rings to the four corners at its four legs. 27 Close to the frame the rings shall lie, as holders for the poles to carry the table. 28 You shall make the poles of24 acacia wood, and overlay them with gold, and the table shall be carried with these. 29 And you shall make its plates and dishes for incense, and its flagons and bowls with which to pour drink offerings; you shall make them of pure gold. 30 And you shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before me regularly.
31 “You shall make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand shall be made of hammered work: its base, its stem, its cups, its calyxes, and its flowers shall be of one piece with it. 32 And there shall be six branches going out of its sides, three branches of the lampstand out of one side of it and three branches of the lampstand out of the other side of it; 33 three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower, on one branch, and three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower, on the other branch—so for the six branches going out of the lampstand. 34 And on the lampstand itself there shall be four cups made like almond blossoms, with their calyxes and flowers, 35 and a calyx of one piece with it under each pair of the six branches going out from the lampstand. 36 Their calyxes and their branches shall be of one piece with it, the whole of it a single piece of hammered work of pure gold. 37 You shall make seven lamps for it. And the lamps shall be set up so as to give light on the space in front of it. 38 Its tongs and their trays shall be of pure gold. 39 It shall be made, with all these utensils, out of a talent of pure gold. 40 And see that you make them after the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain.
Short Summary of the Bible So Far
The Lord created humanity in His image, to represent Him to the world. Humanity is both incredibly powerful and incredibly vulnerable, and so the Lord set up the Man and the Woman in the Garden of Eden to be instructed in how to live well. In the middle of the Garden was the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil—the fruit of both trees was meant to help the humans grow and learn and live in God’s presence.
Rather than trust the Lord, however, they reach out and take from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil on their own. This action tears at the trust that is necessary for people to live with God, and so they leave Eden.
The Lord doesn’t give up on humanity, however, and chooses one man—Abraham—and his family to bring blessing to the entire world.
Abraham’s family finds itself enslaved in Egypt, but the Lord rescues them and brings them to Mount Sinai and tells them they will be His representatives to the nations. He gives them the Ten Commandments and the Law so that they will know how to live well.
And then He gives Moses blueprints to create an Eden-like enclosure and tent in the midst of the Israelite encampment. The purpose? So that the Lord can be close to the people.
And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. [Exodus 25:8]
It’s as if the Lord is going to start all over again and teach people what they need to flourish and live at peace with the rest of creation.
Some Notes on the Tabernacle Instructions
This is the kind of material in the Bible that many of us skip, but, when I slow down and actually pay attention, I find it really interesting.
Some quick notes:
· The Israelites have come up out of Egypt and are currently in the middle of the wilderness. So, any building materials will have to come from what they themselves brought out of Egypt.
· The offering is voluntary! The Lord just asks people to give as they feel led to give (v.2).
· Some of the jewels and precious metals are first mentioned as being in the Garden of Eden (see Genesis 2.)
· Cherubim are these terrifying spiritual beings with wings; the last time we heard of them was in Genesis 3:24, where they were stationed with flaming swords to keep the Man and the Woman from coming back into the Garden of Eden.
· The plan for the lampstand is obviously to make it look like a tree! Read the details and you can see that it will look tree-like when it is completed.
All of this is to say that the plans for the inner part of the tabernacle are meant to invoke imagery from the Garden of Eden. After those long years of exile from the Lord’s presence, now the Lord is making plans to be close to His people again.
I can’t be the only person who:
1. Faces discouragement;
2. Faces confusion.
I’m discouraged sometimes because so many things seem so difficult and depressing. There is so much bad news and life is so difficult for so many people.
I’m confused because I often don’t know what to do.
The solution to both discouragement and confusion is to spend time with the Lord.
The more we experience the Lord’s presence, the more convinced we are that:
In the end, everything will be okay.
If it’s not okay, then it’s not the end.
And if it’s not the end, then the Lord still has work for us to do.
It’s not that the bad things go away when we spend time with the Lord, it’s that we become more convinced that somehow and someway, everything is going to be okay. We have the strength to carry on.
And, the more time we spend with the Lord, the more we become like Him and the more His wisdom influences how we see and act in the world. We learn how best to live.
The presence of God is life itself, and apart from Him we can do nothing.
What if you lived today as if you were desperate for the Lord to be close?
P.S. One of the ways that I believe modern Christianity has lost its way is in the manner by which we build churches today: spare, utilitarian spaces that don’t look much different from department stores or schools or hospitals. What if we took inspiration from the tent the Lord has the Israelites construct in the desert and decided that spaces dedicated to the worship of God ought to be the best and most beautiful spaces we could build?