But while all idolatrous forms of worship were thus rigorously forbidden, the Almighty condescended to make known to His people the way in which He was willing to receive their adoration. Stooping to the infirmities of a nation just delivered from degrading bondage, He took them by the hand, and provided for the wants of their religious nature in a way marvellously adapted to their native genius and character, as also to their previous habits and modes of thought.
And first, that the Israelites might have a visible assurance of the Divine presence in their midst, a sanctuary was to be erected, not according to any model suggested by the people themselves, but according to a Divine pattern shown to Moses in the Mount (Ex. xxv. 9; Heb. viii. 5). The Patriarchs had their pillars of stone (Gen. xxviii. 18, 19), or the shade of the consecrated grove (Gen. xxi. 33). The Egyptian had his huge colossal temples, built of vast granite blocks, or hewn out of the solid rock. Not such was to be the sanctuary of Jehovah amongst a people journeying through a wilderness to a Promised Land. As the nomad chief had his tent in the midst of his tribe, so Jehovah, as the Head of the Hebrew pilgrim-nation, ordained that a Tent or _Tabernacle_ should be erected for Him, where He might _meet and speak unto_ His people, and _they might draw nigh to Him. I will sanctify_, said God, _the Tabernacle of meeting, ... there will I meet with ... and will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God, and they shall know that I am the Lord their God_ (Ex. xxix. 42–46; xxx. 6, 36).
In the erection of this Pavilion-Temple every member of the nation was invited to take a part, and to contribute either the gold and jewels of which the Egyptians had been spoiled, or the arts which, as we have seen, many of the Israelites had learnt from them. While, therefore, the superintendence of the work was entrusted to two skilful artificers, BEZALEEL of the tribe of Judah, and AHOLIAB of the tribe of Dan (Ex. xxxi. 2, 6; xxxv. 34), many of the congregation contributed offerings of gold and silver and brass, of blue and red and crimson, of fine linen, and goat-skins, and ram-skins dyed red. Others were despatched in different directions throughout the fertile valley where they were encamped, to fell the Shittah or Acacia tree, which grew abundantly in the neighbourhood of Sinai, and was exactly adapted by its durability and lightness for the construction of a moveable tent, and while the workmen prepared it for its different purposes, the women employed themselves diligently in weaving and spinning blue and crimson hangings, thus consecrating the arts which they had learnt, while serving as bondslaves in the houses of the princes of Egypt (Ex. xxxv. 20–35).