Exodus 40 — The Glory Fills the Tabernacle

Today’s Passage: Exodus 40

We have come to the last chapter of Exodus, and I would have you feel the whole long journey standing behind these thirty-eight verses before we read a word of them. Think back over the road we have traveled. A people in chains, groaning under Pharaoh, and a God who heard them. The plagues, and the blood on the doorposts, and the night they walked out of Egypt with their kneading bowls on their shoulders. The sea that opened before them and closed behind them. The thunder and fire of Sinai, and the law given, and the golden calf, and the mercy that would not let them go. The long, patient chapters of gold and blue and acacia wood, the ark and the mercy seat, the table and the lampstand, all built to a heavenly pattern. Every step of it has been climbing toward one thing, and now, in this closing chapter, we reach it. The tabernacle is raised, the last curtain is hung, the work is finished, and then the cloud descends and the glory of the LORD comes down and fills the tent, so full and so weighty that even Moses cannot enter. This is the summit the whole book has been climbing. God, who redeemed a people out of Egypt, has come down to dwell in the very middle of them. That is where Exodus ends, and it is worth the whole climb.

As you read, hold this: When the work was finished and the tabernacle raised, the cloud covered it and the glory of the LORD filled it, for the whole book had been climbing toward this one thing, that the holy God would come down and dwell in the midst of His redeemed people.

Exodus 40:1-8 (BSB)

¹ Then the LORD said to Moses, ² “On the first day of the first month you are to set up the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting. ³ Put the ark of the Testimony in it and screen off the ark with the veil. ⁴ Then bring in the table and set out its arrangement; bring in the lampstand as well, and set up its lamps. ⁵ Place the gold altar of incense in front of the ark of the Testimony, and hang the curtain at the entrance to the tabernacle. ⁶ Place the altar of burnt offering in front of the entrance to the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting. ⁷ And place the basin between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and put water in it. ⁸ Set up the surrounding courtyard and hang the curtain for the entrance to the courtyard.

The book began with God speaking to a man out of a burning bush, and here near its end God is speaking still, laying out with a father’s care exactly how His house is to be raised. Mark the day He chooses. On the first day of the first month, at the very turning of the year, the dwelling of God is to stand complete. It is a fresh beginning stamped upon the calendar, as if God would have His people count their time from the day He came to live among them. And notice the tender order of His instructions, each piece named and given its place: the ark first, deepest in and screened by the veil, then the table and the lampstand in the holy place, then the golden altar of incense, then the outer curtain, then the great altar and the basin in the courtyard, and the courtyard itself hung all around.

There is a movement in that list worth seeing. God begins at the center, at the ark where He would meet His people over the blood-sprinkled mercy seat, and works His way outward to the very entrance of the courtyard. The whole camp is being arranged around a center, and the center is the place where God comes down to dwell. Everything has its appointed spot, nothing is left to chance or to taste, because this is no ordinary tent. It is the dwelling place of the living God, and the God who designed it also directs, piece by piece, how it shall be set in order.

Exodus 40:9-15 (BSB)

⁹ Take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and everything in it; consecrate it along with all its furnishings, and it shall be holy. ¹⁰ Anoint the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils; consecrate the altar, and it shall be most holy. ¹¹ Anoint the basin and its stand and consecrate them. ¹² Then bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and wash them with water. ¹³ And you are to clothe Aaron with the holy garments, anoint him, and consecrate him, so that he may serve Me as a priest. ¹⁴ Bring his sons forward and clothe them with tunics. ¹⁵ Anoint them just as you anointed their father, so that they may also serve Me as priests. Their anointing will qualify them for a permanent priesthood throughout their generations.”

It is not enough that the tabernacle be built; it must be made holy. So God commands the anointing oil to be poured over the tent and everything in it, over the altar and the basin, setting each thing apart from common use and consecrating it wholly to God. The word runs through these verses like a refrain of its own: it shall be holy, it shall be most holy. Nothing that houses the presence of God can remain ordinary. The oil marked out each piece as belonging now to Him, taken out of the world of everyday things and given over to the service of heaven.

And the same is done to the men who will serve there. Aaron and his sons are brought to the entrance, washed with water, clothed in the holy garments, and anointed with the same oil that consecrated the tent, so that they may serve as priests before God. There is a fitness in it. A holy God dwelling in a holy tent will be served by holy men, cleansed and clothed and set apart for the work. And their anointing, God says, secures a permanent priesthood throughout their generations, a settled and abiding way for a sinful people to draw near. All of it, the oil, the washing, the garments, is God’s own provision for the great problem the book has pressed on us from Sinai onward: how can an unholy people live in the presence of a holy God? God Himself answers it, consecrating a place and a priesthood so that the dwelling might not consume the very people it came to bless.

Exodus 40:16-19 (BSB)

¹⁶ Moses did everything just as the LORD had commanded him. ¹⁷ So the tabernacle was set up on the first day of the first month of the second year. ¹⁸ When Moses set up the tabernacle, he laid its bases, positioned its frames, inserted its crossbars, and set up its posts. ¹⁹ Then he spread the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering over the tent, just as the LORD had commanded him.

Here begins the great refrain of the chapter, and I would have you listen for it as it returns again and again, for it is the heartbeat of these verses. Moses did everything just as the LORD had commanded him. That single sentence governs all that follows. Then the day is named, the first day of the first month of the second year, and we feel the weight of the anniversary. A year before, they were slaves. Now the house of God rises in their midst. And with quiet, patient care Moses raises it, laying the bases, setting the frames, inserting the crossbars, standing up the posts, then spreading the tent and its covering over all, and once more the words fall like a seal upon the work: just as the LORD had commanded him.

Do not pass over that refrain as mere repetition, for it is the whole lesson of the chapter set to music. Back at the calf, Israel had done what was right in their own eyes and it had nearly undone them. Here, at the raising of the tabernacle, everything is done exactly as God had said, and the glory comes down. The obedience is not glamorous. It is a man setting posts in their sockets and stretching cloth over frames, humble labor done in humble faith. But it is done God’s way, to the letter, and that faithful, unhurried obedience is the very thing into which the glory of God will presently descend. The house that God fills is the house that God designed and that His servant raised just as He had said.

Exodus 40:20-27 (BSB)

²⁰ Moses took the Testimony and placed it in the ark, attaching the poles to the ark; and he set the mercy seat atop the ark. ²¹ Then he brought the ark into the tabernacle, put up the veil for the screen, and shielded off the ark of the Testimony, just as the LORD had commanded him. ²² Moses placed the table in the Tent of Meeting on the north side of the tabernacle, outside the veil. ²³ He arranged the bread on it before the LORD, just as the LORD had commanded him. ²⁴ He also placed the lampstand in the Tent of Meeting opposite the table on the south side of the tabernacle ²⁵ and set up the lamps before the LORD, just as the LORD had commanded him. ²⁶ Moses placed the gold altar in the Tent of Meeting, in front of the veil, ²⁷ and he burned fragrant incense on it, just as the LORD had commanded him.

Now Moses moves inward, and one by one the sacred things we studied for so many chapters are carried to their appointed places. Into the ark he lays the Testimony, the tablets of the covenant, and over the accusing law he sets the mercy seat, the golden lid where God had promised to meet His people over covering blood. He brings the ark into the innermost room and screens it with the veil, just as the LORD had commanded him. Then out into the holy place he sets the table on the north with its bread arranged before the LORD, and the lampstand on the south with its lamps lit and shining, and the golden altar before the veil with its fragrant incense rising, and after each one the refrain returns, just as the LORD had commanded him. Four times in these eight verses the words come back, like a workman pausing after each task to say, exactly as He said, exactly as He said.

Take in what is happening here. Everything that was only a set of instructions in the chapters behind us is now standing in its place, real and finished, in a real tent in the middle of a real camp. The bread of fellowship is spread before God. The lamps that never go out are burning in a room where no sun ever reaches. The incense is climbing like prayer before the veil. And behind that veil, over the broken law, the mercy seat waits for the day of atonement and the sprinkled blood. Every piece is a sermon we have already heard, and now every sermon has taken shape in gold and cloth and light. The house is nearly ready, and the God for whom it was built is about to come and fill it.

Exodus 40:28-33 (BSB)

²⁸ Then he put up the curtain at the entrance to the tabernacle. ²⁹ He placed the altar of burnt offering near the entrance to the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, and offered on it the burnt offering and the grain offering, just as the LORD had commanded him. ³⁰ He placed the basin between the Tent of Meeting and the altar and put water in it for washing; ³¹ and from it Moses, Aaron, and his sons washed their hands and feet. ³² They washed whenever they entered the Tent of Meeting or approached the altar, just as the LORD had commanded Moses. ³³ And Moses set up the courtyard around the tabernacle and the altar, and he hung the curtain for the entrance to the courtyard. So Moses finished the work.

Moses moves now to the courtyard, the outermost place, and sets in order the last of it. He hangs the curtain at the entrance, raises the great altar of burnt offering where the sacrifices would be made, and there offers the burnt offering and the grain offering, the first gifts to rise from this newly finished house. He sets the basin between the tent and the altar and fills it with water for washing, and from it the priests cleanse their hands and their feet whenever they draw near, for no one comes into the presence of God with the soil of the world still on him. And again, twice more in these verses, the faithful refrain: just as the LORD had commanded him. Then he raises the courtyard walls all around and hangs the last curtain at its gate.

And then comes a phrase that ought to make us stop and lay the whole book alongside it. So Moses finished the work. Turn back, if you can, to the very beginning of Scripture, and hear the echo, for these are the words spoken over creation itself, when God finished the work He had made and saw that it was good. As God had raised the great house of the heavens and earth and then rested, so now His servant Moses finishes the work of this smaller house, this tent that is a little model of heaven pitched on the desert floor. The work is done. Every frame is standing, every curtain hung, every vessel in its place, every command obeyed to the letter. And when a work is truly finished according to the word of God, something always follows. The builder steps back, and the glory comes down.

Exodus 40:34-38 (BSB)

³⁴ Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. ³⁵ Moses was unable to enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. ³⁶ Whenever the cloud was lifted from above the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out through all the stages of their journey. ³⁷ If the cloud was not lifted, they would not set out until the day it was taken up. ³⁸ For the cloud of the LORD was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel through all their journeys.

Here is the summit of the whole book, and I would have us stand very still before it. The work is finished, and then the cloud descends. It covers the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD fills the tabernacle. The same glory that had burned on the far peak of Sinai, so terrible that the people could not touch the base of the mountain and lived in dread of it, has now come down off the mountain and into the middle of the camp, and it has filled the little tent that willing hands had raised. God has done the thing He set out to do when He first said, let them make a sanctuary for Me, so that I may dwell among them. He has come to dwell (שָׁכַן) shakan, pronounced shah-KHAN. Strong's H7931, to dwell, settle down, abide, take up residence. We reached this word back at Exodus 25, when God first said, let them make a sanctuary for Me, so that I may dwell among them, and now at the end of the book we watch that hope come true. From this single root comes the very name of the tent that Moses has just raised, the mishkan, which means simply the dwelling place, the place where God settles down to live. So the whole book of Exodus, when you follow this one word, is the story of God coming to shakan, coming to move in and dwell, right in the middle of a camp of redeemed sinners. What was spoken as a longing in chapter 25 is a finished house in chapter 40, filled to overflowing with the glory of the God who has come to stay. . The distance is closed. The holy God has pitched His tent among the tents of a redeemed people, and He is home.

And from this same root the later teachers of Israel drew the word Shekinah, the visible dwelling-glory of God, the very glory we are about to see fill the tent. But the word reaches further still, all the way into the New Testament. When John opens his Gospel and tells us that the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, he reaches, in Greek, for a word that means to pitch a tent, to tabernacle, and behind it stands this ancient Hebrew hope of God settling down among His people. What the golden tent at Sinai could only picture, God did in fullness in His Son, coming to shakan among us in a body like ours, so that men beheld His glory not as a cloud on a far mountain but in the face of Jesus Christ. The tabernacle was the promise; the incarnation was the keeping of it. God has come to dwell among us, and He will dwell with us forever.

And see how full the filling is. Moses, the friend of God, the man who spoke with Him face to face and came down from the mountain shining, cannot even enter the tent, so completely has the glory (כָּבוֹד) kavod, pronounced kah-VODE. Strong's H3519, glory, weight, splendor, honor. This is the word that fills the last verses of Exodus, the glory of the LORD that filled the tabernacle. Kavod comes from a root that means to be heavy, to weigh much, and that root idea is worth holding, for the glory of God is His weightiness, His substance, the sheer overwhelming reality of His presence pressing down and filling a place. When the text says the kavod filled the tent so full that Moses could not enter, it is telling us that the weight of God’s own presence had come down and settled there, more than the man could bear to walk into. It is not a soft or misty thing, this glory. It is heavy with the very being of God, the same weight that had shaken Sinai now come to rest upon a tent of cloth and gold. settled upon it. There is no rebuke in that; there is only the sheer, overwhelming weight of the presence of God, filling every corner of the house made for it. What the mountain held at a distance, the tent now holds in its very midst, and it is more than a man can walk into. This is the goodness of God and the greatness of God in one and the same cloud, the tender nearness of a God who comes to live among His people, and the blazing holiness of a God whose glory a mortal cannot contain.

And it is a wonder past telling that such weight would consent to dwell in such a place, in the middle of a wandering, sinful, redeemed people. The kavod did not stay on the far mountain; it came down and filled the house that obedience had raised. Centuries later this same glory would fill Solomon’s temple in just the same way, and the priests would be unable to enter, the pattern repeating so Israel would never forget where their God had chosen to dwell. But the deepest keeping of it came when the Word became flesh, and men beheld His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, the kavod of God no longer filling a tent they could not enter but shining in the face of a Man they could touch and follow and love. The glory that filled the tabernacle was always reaching toward that face, and toward the day when it would fill all things and the dwelling of God would be with man forever.

And then the book gives us its last picture, and it is a picture not of an ending but of a journey about to begin. The cloud rests over the tabernacle by day, and fire glows within it by night, and by this the LORD Himself will lead His people. When the cloud lifts, they set out; when it settles, they stay. Through all the stages of their journey, through every camp and every wilderness mile still ahead, the presence of God goes with them, visible to the whole house of Israel, day and night, the God who dwells in their midst now the God who leads them home. That is where Exodus lays down its pen. Not at a border reached or a promise fully kept, but at the sight of God’s own glory dwelling among His people and going before them into all that is still to come.