More on the Tabernacle

Enns observes a few key textual factors that point to the tabernacle as a recreated Eden.

Commentators for centuries have noticed that the phrase ‘the LORD said to Moses’ occurs seven times in chapters 25-31. The first six concern the building of the tabernacle and its furnishings (25:1; 30:11, 17, 22, 34; 31:1), while the final introduces the Sabbath command (31:12). It seems clear that the purpose of this arrangement is to aid the reader in making the connection between the building of the tabernacle and the seven days of creation, both of which involve six creative acts culminating in a seventh-day rest.

Peter Enns, Exodus, NIVAC, 509. [The weakness of the observation is the clustering of the sayings in ch. 30; why does it not occur consistently at key points of the building process?]

Interestingly the very next event recorded (Ex. 32) is a fall. There a couple of occasions in Scripture in which there is a "recreation" followed by a fall. (The Flood is one example. The passage is full of creation language. It is as if the world is washed clean and recreated. And the next recorded incident after God’s rainbow covenant with Noah is a fall). These passages emphasize the depth to which sin is engraved in the human person. To remove sin there will need to be a real recreation.

Also important to notice, the fall in Exodus 32 puts God’s presence among his people in jeopardy.