Texts in Conversation
Exodus describes Moses completing the work of the tabernacle using the same language that Genesis uses for God completing creation. This common language highlights how Genesis depicts the creation of the world as God creating a temple and ordering it as sacred space.
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Genesis 2:3
Hebrew Bible
1 The heavens and the earth were completed with everything that was in them. 2 By the seventh day God finished the work that he had been doing, and he ceased on the seventh day all the work that he had been doing. 3 God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he ceased all the work that he had been doing in creation. 4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created—when the Lord God made the earth and heavens. 5 Now no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Exodus 40:33
Hebrew Bible
31 Moses and Aaron and his sons would wash their hands and their feet from it. 32 Whenever they entered the tent of meeting, and whenever they approached the altar, they would wash, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. 33 And he set up the courtyard around the tabernacle and the altar, and put the curtain at the gate of the courtyard. So Moses finished the work. 34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 35 Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Readers of the Tabernacle narrative have long noted the linkage between the erection of the Tabernacle and the creation of the world. One obvious and much commented upon point of connection concerns common diction. To give just one example: after the Tabernacle had been erected and its furniture put in place, the story closes with the observation: “So Moses finished the work (הכאלמה תא השמ לכיו)” (40:33). As Umberto Cassuto writes, one can “discern a parallelism with the story of Creation (Gen 2): “And on the seventh day, God finished the work (ותכאלמ … םיהלא לכיו) that he had done.” ..."
Anderson, Gary A.
"Literary Artistry and Divine Presence" in Ganzel, Tova, and Shalom E. Holtz (eds.) Contextualizing Jewish Temples
(pp. 85-102) Brill, 2021
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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