Scripture Daily

Context No. 1523 of 4322 · Exodus

Context · Reflection

Exodus 38:21-31: in context

21These are the amounts of materials used for the tabernacle, even the Tabernacle of the Testimony, as they were counted, according to the commandment of Moses, for the service of the Levites, by the hand of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest. 22Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made all that the LORD commanded Moses. 23With him was Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver, and a skillful workman, and an embroiderer in blue, in purple, in scarlet, and in fine linen. 24All the gold that was used for the work in all the work of the sanctuary, even the gold of the offering, was twenty-nine talents and seven hundred thirty shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary. 25The silver of those who were counted of the congregation was one hundred talents and one thousand seven hundred seventy-five shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary: 26a beka a head, that is, half a shekel, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, for everyone who passed over to those who were counted, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred three thousand five hundred fifty men. 27The one hundred talents of silver were for casting the sockets of the sanctuary and the sockets of the veil: one hundred sockets for the one hundred talents, one talent per socket. 28From the one thousand seven hundred seventy-five shekels he made hooks for the pillars, overlaid their capitals, and made fillets for them. 29The bronze of the offering was seventy talents and two thousand four hundred shekels. 30With this he made the sockets to the door of the Tent of Meeting, the bronze altar, the bronze grating for it, all the vessels of the altar, 31the sockets around the court, the sockets of the gate of the court, all the pins of the tabernacle, and all the pins around the court.

This passage is an accounting of all the materials used in building the tabernacle: the gold, the silver, the bronze, each weighed and recorded. The silver, it notes, came from those who were counted in the census, a half-shekel from each man, the same from every man alike; and from that silver were cast the sockets, the foundation bases on which the sanctuary and its curtains stood. Every talent is accounted for, down to the last, by the appointed overseers.

Two quiet things are worth noticing in this ledger. The first is what the silver became: the half-shekel given by each person was cast into the sockets, the foundation bases on which the whole tabernacle rested. And it was the same half-shekel from every man, rich and poor alike, no more from the wealthy and no less from the poor. So the foundation of God's dwelling was made of the small, equal gifts of every member of the people, gathered together; the base on which everything stood was the pooled contribution of the many, each giving the same modest amount. There is a picture in that of how God's work is built, not usually on the large gift of one great donor but on the small, equal offerings of many ordinary people, gathered together to form the foundation. Every person had a part, and the part of each was the same size and equally necessary; the sanctuary stood on the combined half-shekels of the whole community. The second thing is the careful accounting itself. Everything given was weighed and recorded, a public reckoning of what had been offered. What is given to God is not thrown into a void but received, counted, and put to use, each contribution mattering and accounted for. The dry inventory testifies that every person's small equal gift became part of the foundation, and that nothing offered was lost or unrecorded.

Do I undervalue my small, ordinary offering to God's work, when the foundation of his dwelling was built from the equal half-shekels of the many, each part necessary, and can I trust that what I give is received, counted, and put to use, nothing of it lost?

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