Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 39-40.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

I found one thing interesting in the way which the ESV (the translation I am using this year) translates the description of what they used to make the garments (and some of the curtains of the tabernacle as well).  It says, “gold, blue and purple and scarlet yarns, and fine twined linen.”  I had noticed this all along in the description of both the instructions and of what they actually did.  I wasn’t sure what to make of this until today when it describes the making of the ephod, because there it says that they hammered out gold leaf, and “he” (probably Bezalel) cut it into threads.  In the past I had always read that as “gold, blue, purple, and scarlet yarns.”  I think we often overlook how difficult it would have been to put thin “threads” of actual gold metal into a garment, or other items made of fabric.  Which brings me to the other thing which struck me, and it did so because I recorded me reading the passage.  Reading it out loud made this repeated phrase stand out to me: “as the Lord had commanded Moses.”  Reading through this passage, the listing of all of the things which they did to build the tabernacle seems tedious.  The listing of the instructions to do so, and then them doing so, also seems tedious.  I find reading about it a bit tedious.  That phrase though tells us that it is important to pay attention to what the Lord commands us to do, even when it seems a bit tedious.

The final thing I want to comment on is chapter 40 verse 18: “Moses erected the tabernacle.”  Many times when I read this, I get a somewhat humorous image in my mind of Moses running around and putting the tabernacle up all by himself.  That picture is enhanced by thinking about the series called “The Promised Land.” (If you have not seen it, you should check it out)  If you have ever put up a 20 foot canopy by yourself, just think about how much harder the tabernacle would have been, and how amusing it would be to watch someone try to do it by themselves while insisting that no one is allowed to help them.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Exodus 33-35.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Early in today’s passage Moses says something which is sort of circular.  He says, “If I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight.”  This should be our approach to God.  We should seek to find favor in God’s sight so that He shows us what He wants us to do in order to know Him and by doing what He shows us we will find greater favor in His sight.  We use God’s love for us, His willingness to give us what we ask for in order to ask Him to show us how to do what He wills us to do.  There is a little more to it than that.  Moses asks that God show him what God desires of him so that God’s presence will be with him, and with the people, in order for others to know that he, and the people had found favor in God’s sight.  So, let me spell this out.  If we ask God to show us His ways, He will do so and we will know Him.  If we know Him, we will do as He instructs.  As we do as God instructs, people will know that God is with us.  Some of those people will be inspired to ask God to show them His ways and follow the path to Him.  Going further in the passage, Moses asked to see the glory of God and God granted His request.  The people saw God’s glory reflected in His face.  In the same way, we should reflect the glory of God so that people who see us will see His glory and be drawn to Him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 30-32.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

I am really glad that I have started recording my video of the Bible passage before I begin work on my comments.  I realized as I was recording it that I would have struggled to pay attention to what I was reading if I had not needed to focus on my pronunciation as I read.  When I read the part where God commanded Moses to collect a monetary “ransom” from everyone who was counted in any census which he took, I realized that this almost certainly explains King David’s sin when he took a census.  The purpose given here for the “ransom” was so that there would not be a plague resulting from the census.  David’s census resulted in a plague. That seems to be the connection.

Later in the passage God tells Moses that He has called two men specifically to head up all of the craftsmen who will be doing the work for the objects in the Tabernacle.  Those two men are Bezalel and Oholiab.  Bezalel seems to be chosen because he was both a skilled craftsman and an artist.  After going into detail about the skills which Bezalel brings to the job, the passage merely says that God has appointed Oholiab to work with him.  I think this gives us a good picture that all good project managers need a “right hand man”, someone to help them wrangle everything together.  However, the reason I wanted to write about this is because of what God says next after appointing Oholiab.  God has given all able men ability, that they may make all that God has commanded.  Whatever skills you have were given to you by God for some purpose.  All of us need to look at the skills which God has given us and seek how we can use them in service to God’s kingdom.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 28-29.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

When God tells Moses to bring Aaron and his sons to serve God as priests He names all four of Aaron’s sons: Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.  Yet back in Exodus 24 when God called Aaron and seventy of the elders of Israel to join Moses in coming before Him on the mountaintop, He only called Nadab and Abihu.  Today, I want to note that the passage groups Nadab and Abihu together and Eleazar and Ithamar together.  Perhaps I should have written about this back when I read Exodus 24, or waited until I read Leviticus 10 where it covers the deaths of Nadab and Abihu, but I saw the way it paired up the Aaron’s four sons, the two who died during their ordination and the two who lived, and thought that noteworthy.

As we continue into the passage we come to where Moses receives instructions that the names of the sons of Israel be engraved on to gem stones.  This has always struck me as incredibly difficult, but two things struck me today.  First, it was not suggesting that they do this engraving on gem stones such as we see today on jewelry.  These were larger stones.  Second, the names would have been engraved in Hebrew lettering, which is more suited for engraving than the letters which we use today.    I am not saying that the engraving was not a work of master craftsmen, just that these realizations make me see this as more realistic than I had previously realized.

Writing about this reminds me that this description is yet another evidence that the Book of Exodus reflects more similarities to Egyptian practices than to Canaanite practices.  The reason I write about this is that a common trope among skeptics is that the worship of YHWH rose out of Canaanite practices.  However, if the elements of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy share more in common with Egyptian cultural practices than with the cultural practices of Canaan, that undermines the theory that the worship of YHWH gradually emerged from Canaanite practices.  That does not mean that the worship of YHWH just emerged from Egyptian practices either.  It would make sense for God to provide the Israelites with symbols which carried meaning from their experience in Egypt while transforming that meaning to His message to them.  I have seen it explained that a careful reading of the passages in the Old Testament which bear a resemblance to the myths of the cultures around the Israelites shows those passages to be a critique of the myths which they resemble.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 25-27.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

I want to start by saying that recording a video of me reading the Bible passage really helps me with reading passages such as today’s.  I got more out of this passage than I have for years, maybe more than ever before.  As I was reading, I understood part of the reason why this passage is here in the Bible.  Now part of that understanding goes to something I heard a month or so back.  This description is, in and of itself, evidence for the Exodus occurring.  Not because the writing claims the Exodus happened.  Instead, this detailed description tells us that the writer(s) of the Book of Exodus were more heavily influenced by Egyptian practices than by practices in the land of Canaan, or elsewhere.  For example, the Ark of the Covenant described here resembles the thrones of gods which the Egyptians placed inside their temples.  The difference being that Egyptian priests “fed” and dressed the idol of the god each day and sat it upon the throne, then undressed it each night and put the idol “to bed”.  The symbolism there was that the priests cared for the needs of their god(s).  The symbolism of the Ark of the Covenant was that, unlike the gods of the Egyptians and other peoples, God did not need people to care for His needs.  He did not need to be fed, or dressed, and He did not sleep.  God is always on His throne.

Further, the Tabernacle itself resembles the tent which was used by Pharaoh Ramses II in the Egyptian army encampment at the battle of Kadesh.  The altar described in this passage also bore a closer resemblance to Egyptian designs than it does to altars used in the land of Canaan.  Overall, this passage, with its detailed descriptions of the Tabernacle and its furnishings, shows us that the writer(s) of the Book of Exodus were influenced more by Egyptian symbolism than by Canaanite symbolism.  Now, some might conclude from this that these designs were of human origin.  After all, why would we expect God to be influenced by the culture of Egypt?  The answer is rather simpler than one might think.  God used symbolism which the Israelites in the wilderness would understand.  The description I gave above about the symbolism of the Ark of the Covenant illustrates what I mean.  If the Ark had not resembled the Egyptian thrones of gods, no one would have noticed the symbolism that those gods needed humans to care for their needs, but that the God of Israel does not.  Nor would they have noticed the symbolism that false gods slept, but the God of Israel does not.  Without the resemblance of the Tabernacle to the tent of Ramses II (and probably other pharaohs) we would not see the fact that the Tabernacle symbolized that God is the ruler of Israel, not some human king (not even a human king who is believed to be divine).

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 22-24.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

I am going to start by writing about what God tells us about justice in this passage.  What is written here is very relevant to how we deal with contemporary events.  At the beginning of Chapter 23 He says that you shall not spread a false report.  God goes on to say that you should not join to be a malicious witness or fall in with the crowds to do evil.  A straightforward reading of this says that if we know something to be untrue we should not spread it, but I think there is a little more to it than that.  I think that the idea of not spreading a false report means that we should check the facts about stories we have before we pass them on.  And I think there is more to what it says about justice.  In fact, when it talks about not being partial it starts by telling us not to be partial to the poor man.  Do not favor the poor over the wealthy.  Then a little later it warns us against perverting the justice due to the poor man.  I think this makes it clear that we should not side with the poor, or with the rich.  Instead, we should side with justice.

Then, in a related command, God tells us not to oppress the sojourner (many other translations say “foreigner”, I think being aware of both ways to translate the Hebrew helps us see this clearly).  This is relevant to the current controversy over immigration law enforcement in the United States, but not in the way that Anti-ICE protesters interpret it.  However, the other side dismisses it too lightly as well.  In order to understand why I think this command is a problem for those who oppose immigration law enforcement we need to look at one of the early arguments against deporting those who had not followed the legal procedures for entering the country: “But if we deport them, who is going to do those jobs?”  Those making that argument was an admission that those who did not have the proper documents to be in this country were being oppressed.  They worked for lower wages and in worse conditions than those who had legal authorization to work here would put up with.  On the other hand, many of those who support the deportation of those who do not have legal authorization to be here are unconcerned with reports that they are being mistreated by the authorities.

Which ties us back to the command to not spread false reports.  Part of the reason for that lack of concern is that those opposing the deportation of illegal immigrants spread stories which imply mistreatment, which turn out to be misstatements of the facts.  This has led those who disagree with them to dismiss ALL of their stories.  The same can happen the other way.  If those who support enforcement of immigration law (or any other position) do not confirm their facts before they tell others about what they hear, many of the stories they tell will also turn out to leave out important facts.  In the short term, you can win the “argument” with lies and false reports, but in the long run you will lose support for your position if you are not honest.  As Christians, we should strive for truth, because we serve the Truth and want to attract others to the Truth.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 19-21.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

I noticed reading today’s passage that when God came down upon Mount Sinai, He warned the priests who come near to Him must consecrate themselves.  In the context this seems to refer to this time just before and immediately after God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments.  I find that noteworthy because this was before God had Moses ordain Aaron and his sons as priests.  Which raises the question as to whether there were priests among the Israelites before Aaron and his sons were ordained as priests?  Perhaps this was merely a reminder to later priests that they needed to make sure they had consecrated themselves before they approached God.  It may also be more general, since in God’s first message to the people of Israel through Moses regarding their time at Mount Sinai He stated that He intended to make them a nation of priests (something truly fulfilled in Christ when He made all disciples of Christ priests).

I also want to take note of the fact that God spoke the Ten Commandments directly to all of the people of Israel.  After He did so, the people asked Moses that he listen to God and pass on God’s word to them rather than have God speak to them directly going forward.  This whole encounter with God, including the reaction of the people of Israel to God speaking to them, gives us an insight into how seriously we should take our encounters for God.  As Christians we, and I definitely speak for myself here, often fail to take our need to be consecrated before God with sufficient dedication.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

And here is the link specifically to today’s video January 24, 2026 Bible Study Consecrate Yourself When in the Presence of God

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 16-18.

I have a Youtube video of me reading the Scripture passage and my comments. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts.

I had never before noticed, or, at least, not really thought about, that God told Moses that He was going to give the people of Israel manna in order to test whether they would walk in His law or not.  And we see that some of them failed the test.  What was the test?  The first part of the test was that God told them on the first day that they were not to keep any of the manna until the next day.  Yet, some of them did so.  Each morning, they collected as much as they needed to feed their household.  Then on the sixth day, they collected twice as much as they had on the previous days.  When this was reported to Moses, he explained that God had told them to save half of it for the seventh day, which was the Sabbath.  They were not to go out to collect any on the Sabbath, the seventh day, because there would not be any to collect.  Once again, some of them did not listen, but instead went out to gather manna and found none.  As I read this I realized it was not just a test to see if the people would follow God’s commands.  It was also training them to follow God’s commands (we will see later that the people of Israel were not very good students).  If the people did not obey God’s commands they had unpleasant, but not particularly painful, consequences.  If they kept manna overnight when He had told them not to, the next morning it had worms and stank.  If they went out on the seventh day to gather manna, they found none.  The effort of getting up and taking out what was needed to gather manna was wasted effort.  Nobody enjoys wasting effort.

There was a second training exercise which God put them through overlapping, and connected with this one I just mentioned.  God led the people of Israel out of Egypt and into the wilderness, where they initially found nothing to eat.  It was only after the people began to complain that they had been brought into the wilderness to starve that God provided them with manna.  Shortly after this, but long enough for the people to have gotten into the habit of gathering manna every day, except for the seventh, God led them to Rephidim, where they did not find water to drink.  Once again, the people complained that they had been brought out of Egypt to die.  This time from thirst.  Notice how the people failed to learn from their first complaint about being led out of Israel to due?  I believe that these overlapping themes illustrate the ways in which God attempts to train us to do His will and to rely on Him.

The Israelites did not just cry out to God for food, and then later for water.  They complained that God was going to let them die.  First from hunger, then later from thirst.  Despite God having shown them His power, first by causing the Egyptians to send them forth with great treasure, then by dividing the Red Sea to allow them to escape Pharaoh’s army, they failed to trust that He would provide for their need for food and water.  And when God provided them with food, they failed to follow His instructions regarding how to collect and store that food.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.