And it reminds the reader of who the Creator is. The Creator doesn't need to be sustained.
It's the Creator that sustains his people.
Let's talk about the tabernacle a little bit more: «The Tabernacle intentionally takes
the reader back to creation and the Creator.» I probably spend two or three full
episodes in the podcast on this idea. But I want to take you back to something specific.
«The bread of the Presence and its rituals.» Remember, in the tabernacle complex,
there was the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies,
that's the one everybody remembers,
and then the menorah (the Golden Lampstand). But there was also this table
that had the bread of the Presence, and there were 12 loaves on it.
And there are laid out real specifically and whatnot. That bread, and its associated rituals
are an item of interest in Naked Bible Podcast, episode 298.
And I make the point in that episode, that if you compare what's done with the bread,
and the sacrifices, and the libations, the wine, in ancient Near Eastern culture,
that stuff was set before the deity. And either just left there,
or something ritually would be done to it so that they would imagine the deity
was consuming it. And therefore the deity was sustained
by the offering in some way.
There are things about the Israelite rituals that specifically deny those ideas.
Everything offered to God is vaporized. It's burned. It's not eaten. It's burned.
And the smoke goes up to heaven, where God can smell it, so to speak.
The stuff that is eaten and drank in these rituals is consumed by the priests.
Again, you can listen to the whole episode, but what that does is it inverts the picture;
the numbering, the bread, the edenic imagery of the tabernacle associated with this,
takes the mind back to creation, Genesis, the garden.
And it reminds the reader of who the Creator is. The Creator doesn't need to be sustained.
It's the Creator that sustains his people. So, the actual ritual in this garden context,
you know, it's the tabernacle, but it's decorated this way to make people reimagine this,
even what's done with the material of the offerings, is designed to make the point
that you're being transported back mentally, spiritually, as it were, to the garden.
And God is going to sustain you. Your God here in this place, this mobile Eden
that we call the tabernacle, is the same Creator God back here, and he has the same plan.
He's leading you by His angel and his Presence, okay. Leading you into a land
where you will worship him on his mountain, he will set his name there.
He will dwell with you, he will sustain you. Why...
Have you ever asked yourself this question;
Why is it that when they go to reconnoitre the land,
did you ever wonder how the land of Canaan is described?
Why it's described the way it is? It's «a land flowing with milk and honey.»
Okay, the spies bring back incredible abundance of food. It's Eden.
Okay, the characterization is deliberate. They've been wandering for 40 years.
I mean, they wander, you know, they go from Sinai to this place,
and then they fail and then they got to wander for 40 years, they come right back.
But the whole notion is, you've been in the desert. Okay, the desert is not where Yahweh is.
It's tough, but he's sustaining you because he's going with you in this mobile Eden,
but the place where He's taking you is like Eden.
I mean, it's this land flowing with milk and honey, it's awesome.
The characterization is supposed to make you not only think of the garden,
where God's presence originally was, it's supposed to make you notice the total contrast
between Canaan and stuff outside Canaan. It's supposed to do that.
And again, for an ancient agrarian culture, it certainly would do that.