Year 1, Day 87: Exodus 38

We continue here with our reading about the ways in which the Hebrew people follow up on God’s directions regarding the tabernacle.  Again the words are pretty straightforward, so let me take us down a little bit of a rabbit trail.

Resources

I read in a commentary on this passage that it is not unreasonable to think of the directions for the tabernacle as needing a fair amount of resources.  In fact, some scholars suggest that these plans would dictate for about a ton of gold, three-quarter ton of silver, and two and a quarter-ton of bronze.  That doesn’t count the wood and fabric, either!

These may sound like an amazing amount of material.  It is a lot of materials, don’t get me wrong.  But, I believe we can take the Bible literally here when it says that there were 603,550 men in the Hebrew camp.  Thus, we can determine roughly how much each man and his family would have needed to give up.

A ton is roughly 2,200 pounds (depending on whether you are using a short ton, a long ton, or a metric ton).  There are 16 ounces in a pound.  So simple math tells us that a ton should be 35,200 ounces.  If we divide 35,200 by 603,550 we get approximately .058.  So that means that for the tabernacle to be built each Hebrew adult male would have needed to come up with 1/17 of a single ounce of gold.  Using the same logic, it would have also meant about 1/20 of an ounce of silver and just over 1/7 of an ounce of bronze.  For a people who have just plundered the wealthiest nation at the time – The Egyptians – this would have been easily manageable.

Just FYI, there are people out there that think the Bible greatly overestimates how many people actually left Egypt in the Exodus.  Even if the number is too large by a factor of 20, that means that each male and his family would only have needed to come up with an ounce of silver, and ounce of gold, and 2.5 ounces of bronze.  That is still very much in the realm of probability!

I realize I like math.  But sometimes math is really your friend.  Here we can see that although this seems like a large amount of materials and wealth required to build that which God desires.  The math helps us see that not only is it possible but that it really is probable!

It also gives us a little bit of insight as to how the Hebrew people were able to out-give the needs for the tabernacle.  God had blessed them so abundantly and required so little from them that it worked out in their favor!  I think this is one of the amazing aspects of such a logical chapter.  God gives us in such abundance.  He truthfully asks so little in return with respect to the resources of this world.

I pray that your reading of these chapters helps you understand just how manageable God’s requests of you actually are.

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