Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Exodus, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
God’s Identity and Power
Redemption and Deliverance
The Covenant
Mediators and the Priesthood
Summary
Analysis
The tabernacle should have curtains of fine linen and blue, purple, and crimson yarns. Cherubim should be worked into the design. The curtains should be joined together with golden clasps. Eleven curtains of goats’ hair should be joined together, using bronze clasps, to form a tent over the tabernacle. There should also be a covering made of tanned rams’ skins and a leather outer covering. God also gives instructions for eight acacia wood frames for the tabernacle. Then the tabernacle should be erected according to the plan shown to Moses on the mountain.
This section lays out details for constructing the tabernacle’s curtains and frames. The use of cherubim imagery and gold convey the sacredness and high value of the tabernacle in Israel’s life—it is God’s dwelling place. In the Garden of Eden, cherubim barred Adam and Eve from the tree of life from which they were forbidden to eat. The curtains’ cherubim design might be a similar warning against unauthorized entrance.
Themes
Finally, a curtain of blue, purple, and crimson yarn and fine linen, with cherubim worked into it, should be hung on four acacia wood pillars overlaid with gold. The ark of the covenant should be placed within the curtain. The curtain will serve to separate the holy place from the most holy place. The mercy seat should be placed on the ark of the covenant in the most holy place. The table should be outside the curtain, on the north side of the tabernacle; the lampstand should be on the south side. The entrance to the tent should also have an embroidered screen.
This section explains the tabernacle’s floor plan. The key element is the distinction between the most holy place (containing the ark of the covenant) and the holy place (containing the table of the bread of the presence and the lampstand). The richly colored curtain, decorated with solemn cherubim imagery, ensures that the separation between these sections is clear.
Themes
