Make four gold rings for the table and fasten them to the four corners, where the four legs are. Like the ark, the table is given four gold rings for carrying poles. The tabernacle furniture is uniformly designed for portability — every major piece has rings for poles. The portable tabernacle is a portable covenant community: the presence of God, the bread of His presence, the altar of incense, the lampstand — all of them designed to move when Israel moves. The fixed temples of surrounding nations housed deities that were rooted to their locations; Israel's God travels with His people. Acts 7:44–47 makes this contrast explicit: the tabernacle was always mobile; it was only David and Solomon who proposed a fixed house for God.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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