A Curious Student's Guide to the Book of Exodus

Enduring Life Lessons for the Twenty-First Century

Reuven Travis

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781725271951, 9781725271968
• eBook ISBN: 9781725271975
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

No matter how many times you have read stories from the Bible, there is always something new to learn from the lives of its characters and the challenges they face. This is especially true for the book of Exodus, and this second Curious Student's Guide will help your children glean new insights into the Exodus narrative. This book will guide your children to these lessons by first summarizing key stories from Exodus and then asking thought-provoking questions.Consider the following example: Every reader of Exodus knows that Moses is its hero, but how many are aware of Miriam's heroism? Miriam is six years old when Moses is born. Very often, adults tell six-year-old children that they are too little to do this or that. But it is Miriam who approaches Pharaoh's daughter after she pulls baby Moses from the river to ask, "Shall I go and get you a Hebrew woman to nurse the child for you?" How dare any slave, especially a child, speak to Pharaoh's daughter and tell her what to do? Miriam dares, and by highlighting her bravery, this book challenges young readers to think about what they can accomplish by speaking up. With this Curious Student's Guide in hand, your children will discover similarly important life lessons they can apply to their own lives.

Terumah

(Exod 25:1–27:19)

Part Two—A Bit of Heaven on Earth

Summary of This Week’s Reading

This is the first of five consecutive weekly readings about the construction of an earthly dwelling place for God’s presence. In Hebrew, this structure is called the mishkan, a word that is sometimes translated as “sanctuary” or “tabernacle.”

God commands the Jewish people to build Him a mishkan, but the construction process actually begins with a request. God tells Moses to ask the Jewish people to bring all the materials needed to build this sanctuary. He then gives Moses detailed instructions regarding the construction and dimensions of the sanctuary and its vessels, starting with the ark, which will hold the two stone tablets Moses brings down from Mount Sinai.

The ark is to be made of gold-plated acacia wood. Rings will be attached to the corners of the ark, and poles will be inserted into the rings when the ark is to be moved. Its cover is to be made from a slab of pure gold, and two angels, called cherubim, are to be placed on top of it, sitting face-to-face.

Next come the instructions for building a table for the showbread. (These are twelve loaves of bread, one for each tribe of the Jewish people, that are baked fresh each Friday and then placed in the mishkan, where they remain for an entire week.) This table is also to be made of gold-plated acacia wood, and it also has rings for the poles used to move it.

The seven-branched menorah (candelabra) is next on God’s list. Like the top of the ark, it, too, is to be made of a single block of pure gold. It has decorative cups, knobs, and flowers on its body.

Now that God has explained to Moses how to build some of the most important vessels used in the mishkan, it is time for instructions for building the structure itself. It is important to remember that the mishkan is not a building. It is a very large and elaborate tent covered with several layers of wall hangings. The first layer is a woven mixture of dyed wools and linen. The second layer is made of goat hair. These two oversized coverings also cover the outsides of its walls. The very top of the mishkan is further covered by dyed ram skins and tachash hides.19

In addition to these beautiful coverings, the mishkan has two sections. The innermost and most important part is called the Holy of Holies. The ark is kept there. The outer chamber is called the “holy chamber.” It contains the menorah and the table for the showbread (as well as the golden altar, which will be described in next week’s reading). These two sections are separated by two curtains woven of dyed wools and linen. One is placed between the Holy of Holies and the holy chamber, and the other covers the entrance to the mishkan itself.

“And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. Exactly as I show you—the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings—so shall you make it.”

—Exodus 25:8–9

Life Lessons from Terumah

There is a basic challenge when thinking about this week’s reading. We believe that each week’s reading has life lessons that apply to every generation. However, the focus of our reading this week is God’s command to the Jewish people to build a mishkan, and that seems limited to the people who only recently left Egypt. What does it have to do with our lives? Let’s take a look and see what life lessons we can discover in the details of building a mishkan.

The Home We Make for God, Part One20

If you read through the verses that describe the building of the mishkan, you will notice some similarities with the verses that describe the creation story in the beginning of the book of Genesis. Here are a few examples:

The Universe (Genesis)	The Mishkan (Exodus)
And God made the sky	They shall make me a sanctuary
And God made the two large lights	They shall make an ark
And God made the beasts of the earth	Make a table
And God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good.	Moses saw all the skilled work, and behold they had done it; as God commanded it, they had done it.
The heavens and earth and all of their array were completed.	All the work of the Tabernacle of the tent of meeting was completed.
And God completed all the work that He had done.	And Moses completed the work
And God blessed	And Moses blessed
And sanctified it	And you shall sanctify it and all its vessels

Look closely at the verbs used in both stories: “make,” “see,” “complete,” “bless,” “sanctify,” and “work.” They are the same. What can we learn from this? Just as the universe begins with an act of creation, so, too, does the history of the Jewish people. In a sense, for the Jewish people, making a mishkan is what creating the universe is for God.

There is another notable similarity between the creation story of Genesis and the story of building the mishkan. At the end of the creation story, when Adam and Eve are sent out of the garden of Eden, there are angels, called cherubim, who guard the entrance back into the garden. In the mishkan, at its very center, rests the ark, and on top of this ark are two cherubim.21

What is the point of all these clear connections and similarities?

First, it seems clear that the mishkan is meant to serve as a symbol for—and perhaps even a model of—the universe. And just as the Jewish people are commanded to treat the mi...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Preface for Parents and Educators
• Introduction for the Curious Student
• Shemot
• Shemot
• Va’era
• Va’era
• Bo
• Bo
• Beshalach
• Yitro
• Yitro
• Mishpatim
• Terumah
• Terumah
• Tetzaveh
• Ki Tisa
• Ki Tisa
• Vayakhel
• Pekudei
• Bibliography
• About the Author