Exodus 29 — That I Might Dwell Among Them

Today’s Passage: Exodus 29

Yesterday God dressed His priest; today He consecrates him, and I must warn you before you begin that this is a long chapter full of ritual, forty-six verses of bulls and rams and blood and bread, and if you try to hold every step in your head you will lose the wonder of it. So do not read it as a butcher’s manual. Read it as the making of a mediator. God is taking ordinary, sinful men, Aaron and his sons, and setting them apart to stand in His holy presence on behalf of the people, and the setting-apart is costly. They are washed with water, clothed in the holy garments, anointed with oil, and marked with blood, for no sinful man draws near to a holy God cheaply. Watch three things move through the whole chapter. First, that the priests are consecrated by blood, life given so that they might serve and live. Second, that blood is put on the priest’s ear and thumb and toe, claiming all he hears and all he does and everywhere he walks for God. And third, hold on for the end, because after all the offerings God tells us at last what the whole thing is for: “I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God.” The tabernacle, the priest, the blood, the exodus itself, all of it was aimed at that one astonishing goal, that the holy God would come down and live among His people. Keep your eye on that promise glowing at the far end of the chapter, and every drop of blood along the way will start to shine.

As you read, hold this: God set apart sinful men by blood and oil to serve Him, and told at last why: that He might dwell among His people and be their God.

Exodus 29:1-9 (BSB)

¹ “Now this is what you are to do to consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve Me as priests: Take a young bull and two rams without blemish, ² along with unleavened bread, unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil. Make them out of fine wheat flour, ³ put them in a basket, and present them in the basket, along with the bull and the two rams. ⁴ Then present Aaron and his sons at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and wash them with water. ⁵ Take the garments and clothe Aaron with the tunic, the robe of the ephod, the ephod itself, and the breastplate. Fasten the ephod on him with its woven waistband. ⁶ Put the turban on his head and attach the holy diadem to the turban. ⁷ Then take the anointing oil and anoint him by pouring it on his head. ⁸ Present his sons as well and clothe them with tunics. ⁹ Wrap the sashes around Aaron and his sons and tie headbands on them. The priesthood shall be theirs by a permanent statute. In this way you are to ordain Aaron and his sons.

Notice the order in which a man is made a priest, for it preaches. First he is washed with water, then clothed in the holy garments, then anointed with oil. He does not dress himself in glory while still unclean; he is bathed first, made outwardly pure, and only then robed in the tunic and ephod and breastpiece we saw yesterday, and crowned with the turban and its holy diadem. Then over that clean and clothed head the anointing oil is poured, marking him as set apart wholly for God. Washed, clothed, anointed, and the same care reaches down to his sons, wrapped in their sashes beside him. This is how God brings a sinner near to serve Him. Not by the man’s own scrubbing and striving, but by being cleansed and covered and consecrated by God’s own appointment, so that the whole thing is a gift and not an achievement. And here at the very start the word sounds that will govern all the rest, that God is doing this to ordain them, to fill their hands (מָלֵא) mālēʾ, pronounced mah-LAY. Strong's H4390, to fill, be full, fill up. When the BSB says God will “ordain” Aaron and his sons, the Hebrew underneath is an old and vivid idiom, mille yad, “to fill the hand.” You will find it running through the chapter, in verse nine and again in verses thirty-three and thirty-five, wherever the word ordination appears. To ordain a priest was literally to fill his hands, and you can watch it happen with your own eyes in verse twenty-four, where the ordination offerings are placed right into the hands of Aaron and his sons to be waved before the LORD. The empty hands of the man are filled with the work and the offering of God’s own service, and that is what it means to be set apart to Him. with His service.

There is a quiet gospel in the picture. A priest did not come to God with hands full of his own accomplishments, demanding a place. He came with empty hands that God Himself filled, filled with the sacrifice, filled with the ministry, filled with a calling he could never have seized on his own. And so it is for every one of us whom God draws into His service. We bring Him open and empty hands, and He fills them, with Christ, with grace, with work to do for His glory. The priesthood was never something a man took. It was always something God gave, pressing it into hands that had nothing of their own to offer.

Exodus 29:10-14 (BSB)

¹⁰ You are to present the bull at the front of the Tent of Meeting, and Aaron and his sons are to lay their hands on its head. ¹¹ And you shall slaughter the bull before the LORD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. ¹² Take some of the blood of the bull and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger; then pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. ¹³ Take all the fat that covers the entrails and the lobe of the liver, and both kidneys with the fat on them, and burn them on the altar. ¹⁴ But burn the flesh of the bull and its hide and dung outside the camp; it is a sin offering.

Before a single garment can do its work, sin must be dealt with, and so the first blood shed is a sin offering. Watch the gesture in verse ten: Aaron and his sons lay their hands on the head of the bull. It is a wordless confession, a transfer, the men pressing their guilt onto the animal that will die in their place, and then the bull is slaughtered and its blood put on the horns of the altar and poured out at its base. Even the priests, the men chosen to draw near, had first to have their sin atoned for by a substitute. No one, not even God’s appointed mediator, comes clean by himself. The lesson is old and unbending: the way to God runs past an altar, and on that altar something must die so that the sinner may live. The best of men needed a sin offering before they could serve, and so do we, and God has provided it.

Exodus 29:15-18 (BSB)

¹⁵ Take one of the rams, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on its head. ¹⁶ You are to slaughter the ram, take its blood, and splatter it on all sides of the altar. ¹⁷ Cut the ram into pieces, wash the entrails and legs, and place them with its head and other pieces. ¹⁸ Then burn the entire ram on the altar; it is a burnt offering to the LORD, a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the LORD.

Now comes the first ram, and it is a burnt offering, which is a different thing from the sin offering before it. The whole ram, not merely its fat, is burned up entirely on the altar and given wholly to God, and Scripture calls it a pleasing aroma to the LORD. Where the sin offering dealt with guilt, the burnt offering speaks of total surrender, the whole life laid on the altar and given up completely, holding nothing back. That is what it meant to belong wholly to God, and it was fitting that a priest be consecrated with such an offering, for the man who would give himself entirely to God’s service was marked by a sacrifice that gave itself entirely to God. Nothing of this ram came back down off the altar. It all went up to Him, and it pleased Him.

Exodus 29:19-21 (BSB)

¹⁹ Take the second ram, and Aaron and his sons are to lay their hands on its head. ²⁰ Slaughter the ram, take some of its blood, and put it on the right earlobes of Aaron and his sons, on the thumbs of their right hands, and on the big toes of their right feet. Splatter the remaining blood on all sides of the altar. ²¹ And take some of the blood on the altar and some of the anointing oil and sprinkle it on Aaron and his garments, as well as on his sons and their garments. Then he and his garments will be consecrated, as well as his sons and their garments.

Here is the tenderest and most searching moment in the whole chapter, so slow down for it. The blood of the second ram is placed on three particular spots of each priest’s body: the lobe of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the big toe of the right foot. Think of what those three places are for. The ear is how a man hears, so his hearing is claimed for the word of God. The hand is how a man works, so his labor is claimed for the service of God. The foot is how a man walks, so his whole path is claimed for the ways of God. From what he listens to, to what he does, to where he goes, the priest is marked by blood as belonging entirely to the LORD. And then blood and anointing oil together are sprinkled over the men and their garments, so that they are consecrated through and through. There is a word here for every believer, for we too have been claimed by blood, the precious blood of Christ, and it lays its gentle claim on the same three things, our ears to hear Him, our hands to serve Him, our feet to follow Him, the whole of us set apart for God.

Exodus 29:22-28 (BSB)

²² Take the fat from the ram, the fat tail, the fat covering the entrails, the lobe of the liver, both kidneys with the fat on them, and the right thigh (since this is a ram for ordination), ²³ along with one loaf of bread, one cake of bread made with oil, and one wafer from the basket of unleavened bread that is before the LORD. ²⁴ Put all these in the hands of Aaron and his sons and wave them before the LORD as a wave offering. ²⁵ Then take them from their hands and burn them on the altar atop the burnt offering as a pleasing aroma before the LORD; it is a food offering to the LORD. ²⁶ Take the breast of the ram of Aaron’s ordination and wave it before the LORD as a wave offering, and it will be your portion. ²⁷ Consecrate for Aaron and his sons the breast of the wave offering that is waved and the thigh of the heave offering that is lifted up from the ram of ordination. ²⁸ This will belong to Aaron and his sons as a regular portion from the Israelites, for it is the heave offering the Israelites will make to the LORD from their peace offerings.

This is the ram of ordination, the filling of the hands we spoke of, and now you can see the idiom made literal. The rich portions of the ram and pieces of the holy bread are placed right into the hands of Aaron and his sons, and they lift them up and wave them before the LORD, empty hands filled with an offering to God, and then it is all burned on the altar as a pleasing aroma. Do not miss the small gift folded into these verses. The breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the heave offering are given to the priests as their portion, a regular share from the offerings of Israel. God does not only take from the men He calls; He provides for them. The priest who served at the altar was also fed from the altar, for the God who fills a man’s hands with His work also fills his table from His own provision. Those who give their lives to His service are never left to fend for themselves.

Exodus 29:29-34 (BSB)

²⁹ The holy garments that belong to Aaron will belong to his sons after him, so they can be anointed and ordained in them. ³⁰ The son who succeeds him as priest and enters the Tent of Meeting to minister in the Holy Place must wear them for seven days. ³¹ You are to take the ram of ordination and boil its flesh in a holy place. ³² At the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, Aaron and his sons are to eat the meat of the ram and the bread that is in the basket. ³³ They must eat those things by which atonement was made for their ordination and consecration. But no outsider may eat them, because these things are sacred. ³⁴ And if any of the meat of ordination or any bread is left until the morning, you are to burn up the remainder. It must not be eaten, because it is sacred.

Two things gather here, and both look forward. First, the holy garments are to pass down from Aaron to his sons after him, so that the priesthood would continue generation after generation, one man succeeding another, the office outlasting any single life. And second, the newly ordained priests are to sit and eat, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, the very meat of the ram and the bread of their ordination, the things by which atonement had been made for them. There is something deeply fitting in that. Having been cleansed and clothed and marked by blood, they now share a meal from the sacrifice itself, taking into themselves the food of their own consecration, and it is holy, so holy that no outsider may share it and nothing may be left until morning. Atonement had been made for them, and now they feed on it, a quiet foreshadowing of the day when God’s people would be told to feed by faith on the one true sacrifice given for them.

Exodus 29:35-37 (BSB)

³⁵ This is what you are to do for Aaron and his sons based on all that I have commanded you, taking seven days to ordain them. ³⁶ Sacrifice a bull as a sin offering each day for atonement. Purify the altar by making atonement for it, and anoint it to consecrate it. ³⁷ For seven days you shall make atonement for the altar and consecrate it. Then the altar will become most holy; whatever touches the altar will be holy.

Notice that this whole solemn ordering was not done once and finished, but repeated across seven full days, and each day another bull was offered as a sin offering. Seven days, the number of completeness, so that the consecration was thorough and whole, sin atoned for again and again until the setting-apart was full. And in these verses the altar itself is consecrated, made most holy, so that whatever touched it became holy. Everything at the heart of Israel’s worship had to be cleansed and set apart before the holy God, not the priests only, but the very altar where they served. Holiness was not treated lightly or hurried through. It took seven days and a sacrifice each day, for coming near to God is a serious and costly thing, and God would have His people know it in their bones.

Exodus 29:38-41 (BSB)

³⁸ This is what you are to offer regularly on the altar, each day: two lambs that are a year old. ³⁹ Offer one lamb in the morning and the other at twilight. ⁴⁰ With the first lamb offer a tenth of an ephah of fine flour, mixed with a quarter hin of oil from pressed olives, and a drink offering of a quarter hin of wine. ⁴¹ And offer the second lamb at twilight with the same grain offering and drink offering as in the morning, as a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the LORD.

When the seven days of ordination were done, the worship did not stop; it settled into a daily rhythm that would go on for generations. Every single day, a lamb in the morning and a lamb at twilight, offered with flour and oil and wine, so that Israel’s worship never ceased, dawn and dusk, the altar always smoking, the LORD always being sought. There is something steadying in that. God did not want His people to worship Him only in great bursts on great occasions, but faithfully, daily, the first act of the morning and the last of the evening given to Him. The fire never went out. And here is a pattern worth carrying into your own life, for the God who was worshiped every morning and every evening in Israel is worthy of the same from us, a life that opens and closes each day by turning to Him, steady and unbroken, not because we must, but because He is worth it.

Exodus 29:42-46 (BSB)

⁴² For the generations to come, this burnt offering shall be made regularly at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting before the LORD, where I will meet you to speak with you. ⁴³ I will also meet with the Israelites there, and that place will be consecrated by My glory. ⁴⁴ So I will consecrate the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and I will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve Me as priests. ⁴⁵ Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. ⁴⁶ And they will know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.

Now, at the very end, God tells us what the whole chapter has been for, and it takes the breath away. All the blood, all the washing and clothing and anointing, all the seven days and the daily lambs, were making a way for this: “I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God.” The altar was a meeting place, God says, where I will meet you to speak with you, and the tent would be filled with His glory. And then in verse forty-six He reaches all the way back to the beginning of the story and ties the whole exodus into a single knot: He brought them out of Egypt so that He might dwell among them. Do you see it? The plagues, the Passover, the parted sea, the wilderness, the mountain, the tabernacle, the priest, the blood, all of it was aimed at this one glorious end, that the holy God would come down and live in the midst of His people and be their God. He did not rescue them merely to be free. He rescued them to be near. And that longing of God to dwell (שָׁכַן) shakan, pronounced shah-KHAN. Strong's H7931, to dwell, settle down, abide, take up residence. This is the word that crowns the chapter, sounding twice in the last two verses where God says “I will dwell among the Israelites” and again that He brought them out “so that I might dwell among them.” Shakan means to settle down, to abide, to take up residence, to make one’s home in a place, and it is a stronger and warmer word than merely to visit. God is not saying He will drop in now and then. He is saying He will move in, settle down, make His dwelling in the very midst of His people. From this same root Israel would come to speak of the tabernacle as the mishkan, the dwelling place, and in time of the shekinah, the visible glory of God settled among them. The whole chapter of blood and altar was building a house where the holy God could shakan, could dwell, with sinners. with His people runs on past this tent, past the temple, all the way to the day when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and on to the end when the voice from the throne cries that the dwelling of God is with man at last.

And that is the wonder the New Testament will not let us forget, for it takes this very idea and says of Jesus that the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, pitched His tent in our midst, and we beheld His glory. The God who once settled in a tent behind a veil, drawing near only through blood and a mediating priest, came at last in His Son to dwell among us face to face, and by His Spirit He now makes His home in the hearts of His people, and He has promised a day when He will dwell with us forever with no veil at all. The oldest desire of God, older than Egypt, was to live among His people. Every drop of blood in Exodus 29 was clearing the way for it.