See that you make them according to the pattern shown you on the mountain. The chapter closes with the same instruction it opened with in verse 9: make them according to the pattern shown on the mountain. The bookend instruction ensures that no ambiguity remains about the standard for construction. The pattern is the heavenly original; the tabernacle is the earthly copy. Every deviation from the pattern is a departure from the heavenly reality the tabernacle represents. Hebrews 8:5 cites this verse as the theological basis for understanding the tabernacle as typological: the shadow of heavenly things shown to Moses on the mountain is the pattern that the tabernacle copies and the new covenant fulfills. The instruction to follow the pattern exactly is the instruction to represent the heavenly accurately.

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