William McEwen once wrote: As the sun paints the clouds with a variety of glorious colors, which in their own nature are but dark and lowering vapors exhaled from the earth, so when the Son of righteousness arises, even the carnal ordinances and commandments of the law, dark and earthly as they seem, are gilded …
Continue reading The Garments & Consecration of the Priests | Exodus 27:20-29:46
Presently, in our study of the book of Exodus, we are considering the instructions for the building of the tabernacle that Yahweh gave to Moses in the span of forty days upon Sinai. As we have noted, the instructions began with the ark of the testimony, the most holy item that would reside in the …
We always keep Genesis 1-3 closely at hand because, through those chapters, we are able to make sense of intermingled wonders and sorrows both around us and within us. The whole process of creation in Genesis 1 builds toward the LORD's creation of mankind, male and female, in His image and after His likeness. Even …
Continue reading That I May Dwell in Their Midst | Exodus 26
As you may have begun to notice, the second half of Exodus divides fairly easily into major sections. Chapters 20-23 saw the first giving of the law through the Ten Commandments and the Book of the Covenant. Chapter 24 primarily described the ratification ceremony of the Yahweh's covenant with Israel, but it also concluded with …
Continue reading The Bread of the Presence & the Golden Lampstand | Exodus 25:23-40
There is a scene in the Lord of the Rings where Aragorn and his company are walking the paths of the dead, a haunted and dreadful road. Yet along the way, they find “the bones of a mighty man… He had fallen near the far wall of the cave, as now could be seen, and …
From the beginning of Exodus, Yahweh has been intent on fulfilling His promise to Abraham of freeing Israel from slavery, giving them the land of Canaan, and dwelling with them as their God. The first fourteen chapters of Exodus displayed how the LORD delivered His people from Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched …
There is some question about whether the text before us properly belongs to the section of Exodus that we have been studying called the Book of the Covenant. After all, it is notably different from list of rules, judgments, and commandments that we have seen so far. However, I believe that this very much is …
Chapters 20-23 of Exodus form a section called in 24:7 the Book of the Covenant. In 21:1-22:15, Yahweh gave Israel laws relating to how they were to treat their slaves and how they were to make restitution for physical harm done to others or the damage of someone else's property. 22:16-23:9 then provided a number …
Last week, we covered a large number of laws from within the Book of the Covenant, yet they all boiled down to the three big categories: regulations concerning slaves, statutes limiting retaliation in events of personal injury, and laws of restitution for the damage of property. As we noted, the principle at the center of …
Continue reading You Shall Be Consecrated to Me | Exodus 22:16-23:9
As we continue to make our way through the section of Exodus called the Book of the Covenant, we would do well to make a few notes for going forward. First, let us remember that while these laws are distinguished from the Ten Commandments, they cannot be detached from them. As we said, the Ten …
B. C. Newton 