Exodus 18:24

18:24 Moses listened to ¹  his father-in-law and did everything he had said.

Exodus 25:3

25:3 This is the offering you ²  are to accept from them: gold, silver, bronze,

Exodus 25:16

25:16 You are to put into the ark the testimony ³  that I will give to you.

Exodus 25:40

25:40 Now be sure to make ⁴  them according to the pattern you were shown ⁵  on the mountain. ⁶ 

Exodus 26:30

26:30 You are to set up the tabernacle according to the plan ⁷  that you were shown on the mountain.

Exodus 30:38

30:38 Whoever makes anything like it, to use as perfume, ⁸  will be cut off from his people.”

Exodus 32:14

32:14 Then the Lord relented over the evil that he had said he would do to his people.

[18:24]  ¹ tn The idiom “listen to the voice of” means “obey, comply with, heed.”

[25:3]  ² tn The pronoun is plural.

[25:16]  ³ sn The “testimony” is the Decalogue (Exod 24:12; 31:18; Deut 4:13; 9:9; 1 Kgs 8:9); the word identifies it as the witness or affirmation of God’s commandments belonging to his covenant with Israel. It expressed God’s will and man’s duty. In other cultures important documents were put at the feet of the gods in the temples.

[25:40]  ⁴ tn The text uses two imperatives: “see and make.” This can be interpreted as a verbal hendiadys, calling for Moses and Israel to see to it that they make these things correctly.

[25:40]  ⁵ tn The participle is passive, “caused to see,” or, “shown.”

[25:40]  ⁶ sn The message of this section surely concerns access to God. To expound this correctly, though, since it is an instruction section for building the lampstand, the message would be: God requires that his people ensure that light will guide the way of access to God. The breakdown for exposition could be the instructions for preparation for light (one lamp, several branches), then instructions for the purpose and maintenance of the lamps, and then the last verse telling the divine source for the instructions. Naturally, the metaphorical value of light will come up in the study, especially from the NT. So in the NT there is the warning that if churches are unfaithful God will remove their lampstand, their ministry (Rev 2-3).

[26:30]  ⁵ tn The noun is מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat), often translated “judgment” or “decision” in other contexts. In those settings it may reflect its basic idea of custom, which here would be reflected with a rendering of “prescribed norm” or “plan.”

[30:38]  ⁶ tn Or to smell it, to use for the maker’s own pleasure.