Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Exodus 25:10-22 comments: the ark of the testimony

10 ¶  And they shall make an ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. 11  And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, within and without shalt thou overlay it, and shalt make upon it a crown of gold round about. 12  And thou shalt cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in the four corners thereof; and two rings shall be in the one side of it, and two rings in the other side of it. 13  And thou shalt make staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold. 14  And thou shalt put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark, that the ark may be borne with them. 15  The staves shall be in the rings of the ark: they shall not be taken from it. 16  And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee. 17  And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. 18  And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat. 19  And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof. 20  And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be. 21  And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. 22  And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.
A cubit, according to some authorities, was a measurement that extended from a man’s elbow to his fingertips. There are different cubits in the Bible. There is the cubit of a man which may allow for some estimations without an absolute and precise standard based on the differences in the sizes of men’s forearms.
Deuteronomy 3:11  For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.
But, there could be a more exacting measurement of a cubit that wasn’t dependent upon the length of an individual’s forearm. See in the next verse a measuring reed of a specific length to measure by.
Ezekiel 40:5 ¶  And behold a wall on the outside of the house round about, and in the man’s hand a measuring reed of six cubits long by the cubit and an hand breadth: so he measured the breadth of the building, one reed; and the height, one reed.
If the standard cubit was 18 inches long, as some say, then the Ark of the Covenant was nearly four foot long but a little over two foot wide and two foot tall. Of course, a longer cubit of, say, 22 inches, means a bigger Ark. It could have been nearly five foot long and nearly three foot wide and tall.
Going on to describe the covering of gold and the rings and staves by which the ark of the testimony was carried it is stated that God is going to give something to Moses to store in it.  The mercy seat with two winged cherubims on each end was to adorn the top facing each other. It is there that God chose to meet with Moses, to speak to him from, in the tabernacle.
We see here the definition of the ark of the testimony as the place where all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel will be stored and protected.
The ark of the testimony and its description contains good teaching material for many sermons as, like our hearts and minds, a place to hide God’s word, and as a token, as Matthew Henry put it, of God’s meeting with us. The ark of the testimony is like the believer’s heart and mind, complete with God’s word hid inside and the mercy seat where, if God truly dwells in your heart by virtue of your being born again, God meets with you.
Psalm 119:11  Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
We are God’s temple, remember?
1Corinthians 3:16 ¶  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
1Corinthians 6:19  What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
If we have the Spirit of God inside of us.
John 14:23  Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Romans 8:9  But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
The kingdom of God that Jesus refers to is not a Christian nation with armies and parliaments and policemen and fine church buildings. It is within the believers uniting them as Christ’s church, His body on earth.
Luke 17:20 ¶  And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: 21  Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

Colossians 1:12 ¶  Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13  Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14  In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: 15  Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16  For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. 18  And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. 19  For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; 20  And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. 21  And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled 22  In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: 23  If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister; 24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church…


This is how the God of the Bible meets with His people today as opposed to how He met with Moses and the Hebrews here in Exodus. That is, if you are truly His and didn’t just repeat a magic mantra that someone gave you after emotionally manipulating you.

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