10/20/2020 – Day 156 – Exodus 37-40 Do you have a Urim & Thummim on your breastplate?
“The unattended garden will soon be overrun with weeds; the heart that fails to cultivate truth and root out error will shortly be a theological wilderness.” A.W. Tozer
We are introduced to Bezalel in the first verse of our reading. What a craftsman by the hand of God! The Tent of Meeting that was used in the 40 year wandering in the desert and up to the construction of the temple by Solomon. So let’s visualize, the tent of meeting , was not perfect rectangle, ranging in length from 150 to around 230 ft with a width of 75 ft. So about 2/3 or so of a football field. The tent pegs were made of bronze!
I tried a quick conversion exercise from talents and shekels to ounces / tons. In tons, here is the weight that went into this worship center: Gold – 1 ton / Silver 3 3/4 tons and Bronze 2 1/2 tons. So, with Gold valued today around $ 1,913/oz, we come to $61mm. If we then divide by 40,000 people in the desert, we get $ 1,530 per person, in today’s dollars. If I recall, the Egyptians “contributed” some precious metals before the exodus began. Unlike the dollar, the gold is pretty stable over time in terms of purchasing power. So, as calculated were are talking just junder an ounce per person.
And the Making of the Garments of the Priesthood is fascinating as well. Check out a visual of “The Ephod breastplate”:
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https://duckduckgo.com/?q=picture+of+an+ephod+in+the+bible&t=h_&iax=images&ia=images
Read about the Urim and the Thummim on the breastplate, used when God’s direction was needed on a specific question such as: Do we attack the Philistines? Yes or no. This was used up until around the time of David.
Lastely you may want to go back to the post “Back to Day 057 – Matthew 24 – Destruction of Jerusalem – 70 A.D. – Part 2 of 3” When you first go into all posts , go up the search bar and enter : “Destruction of Jerusalem” and hit filter. It should appear at the top. At the bottom of that post, there is a visual and an article o the 1st Temple, constructed by Solomon in the 10th century B.C.E. and destroyed in 587 B.C.E. by the Babylonians.
Semper Fi!