Armenia in comments -- Book: Exodus (tEx) Ելք
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tEx 25::5 Rams' skins dyed red - ערת אילם מאדמים oroth eylim meoddamim, literally, the skins of red rams. It is a fact attested by many respectable travelers, that in the Levant sheep are often to be met with that have red or violet-coloured fleeces. And almost all ancient writers speak of the same thing. Homer describes the rams of Polyphemus as having a violet-coloured fleece.
Αρσενες οΐες ησαν εΰτρεφεες, δασυμαλλοι,
Καλοι τε, μεγαλοι τε, ιοδνεφες ειρος εχοντες.
Odyss., lib. ix., ver. 425.
"Strong were the rams, with native purple fair,
Well fed, and largest of the fleecy care."
Pope.
Pliny, Aristotle, and others mention the same. And from facts of this kind it is very probable that the fable of the golden fleece had its origin. In the Zetland Isles I have seen sheep with variously coloured fleeces, some white, some black, some black and white, some of a very fine chocolate color. Beholding those animals brought to my recollection those words of Virgil:
- Ipse sed in pratis Aries jam suave rubenti
Murice, jam croceo mutabit vellera luto.
Eclog. iv., ver. 43.
"No wool shall in dissembled colors shine;
But the luxurious father of the fold,
With native purple or unborrow'd gold,
Beneath his pompous fleece shall proudly sweat,
And under Tyrian robes the lamb shall bleat."
Dryden.
Badgers' skins - ערת תחשים oroth techashim. Few terms have afforded greater perplexity to critics and commentators than this. Bochart has exhausted the subject, and seems to have proved that no kind of animal is here intended, but a color. None of the ancient versions acknowledge an animal of any kind except the Chald:ee, which seems to think the badger is intended, and from it we have borrowed our translation of the word. The Septuagint and Vulgate have skins dyed a violet color; the Syriac, azure; the Arabic, black; the Coptic, violet; the modern Persic, ram-skins, etc. The color contended for by Bochart is the hysginus, which is a very deep blue. So Pliny, Coccoque tinctum Tyrio tingere, ut fieret hysginum. "They dip crimson in purple to make the color called hysginus." - Hist. Nat., lib. ix., c. 65, edit. Bipont.
Shittim wood - By some supposed to be the finest species of the cedar; by others, the acacia Nilotica, a species of thorn, solid, light, and very beautiful. This acacia is known to have been plentiful in Egypt, and it abounds in Arabia Deserta, the very place in which Moses was when he built the tabernacle; and hence it is reasonable to suppose that he built it of that wood, which was every way proper for his purpose. Exodus 25:6
tEx 25::1 Exo 25:1-3
(cf. Exo 35:1-9). The Israelites were to bring to the Lord a heave-offering (תּרוּמה from רוּם, a gift lifted, or heaved by a man from his own property to present to the Lord; see at Lev 2:9), "on the part of every one whom his heart drove," i.e., whose heart was willing (cf. לבּו נדיב Exo 35:5, Exo 35:22): viz., gold, silver, brass, etc.
Exo 25:4
תּכלת, ὑάκινθος, purple of a dark blue shade, approaching black rather than bright blue. ארגּמן, πορφύρα (Chald. ארגּון, 2 Chron, Exo 2:6; Dan 5:7, Dan 5:16; - Sanskrit, rgaman or rgavan, colore rubro praeditus), true purple of a dark red colour. שׁני תּולעת, literally the crimson prepared from the dead bodies and nests of the glow-worm,
(Note: Glanzwurm: "the Linnean name is coccus ilicis. It frequents the boughs of a species of ilex; on these it lays its eggs in groups, which become covered with a kind of down." Smith's Dictionary, Art. Colours. - Tr.)
then the scarlet-red purple, or crimson. שׁשׁ, βύσσος, from שׁוּשׁ to be white, a fine white cotton fabric, not linen, muslin, or net. עזים goats, here goats' hair (τρίχες αἰγείαι, lxx).
Exo 25:5
מאדּמים אלים ערת rams' skins reddened, i.e., dyed red. תּחשׁ is either the seal, phoca, or else, as this is not known to exist in the Arabian Gulf, the φῶκος = φώκαινα of the ancients, as Knobel supposes, or κῆτος θαλάσσιον ὅμοιον δελφῖνι, the sea-cow (Manati, Halicora), which is found in the Red Sea, and has a skin that is admirably adapted for sandals. Hesychius supposes it to have been the latter, which is probably the same as the large fish Tn or Atm, that is caught in the Red Sea, and belongs to the same species as the Halicora (Robinson, Pal. i. p. 170); as its skin is also used by the Bedouin Arabs for making sandals (Burckhardt, Syr. p. 861). In the Manati the upper skin differs from the under; the former being larger, thicker, and coarser than the latter, which is only two lines in thickness and very tough, so that the skin would be well adapted either for the thick covering of tents or for the finer kinds of ornamental sandals (Eze 16:10). שׁטּים עצי acacia-wood. שׁטּה for שׁנטה, the true acacia (acacia vera), which grows in Egypt and on the Arabian peninsula into a tree of the size of a nut-tree, or even larger;
(Note: See Abdallatif's Merkwrdigkeiten Aegyptens, and Rosenmller, Althk. iv. i. pp. 278-9. This genuine acacia, Sont, must not be confounded, according to Robinson (Pal. 2, 350), with the Acacia gumnifera (Talh). Seetzen also makes a distinction between the Thollhh, the Szont of the Egyptians, and the Szeil, and between an acacia which produces gum and one which does not; but he also observes that the same tree is called both Thollhh and Szeil in different places. He then goes on to say that he did not find a single tree large enough to furnish planks of ten cubits in length and one and a half in breadth for the construction of the ark (he means, of the tabernacle), and he therefore conjectures that the Israelites may have gone to Egypt for the materials with which to build the tabernacle. But he has overlooked the fact, that it is not stated in the text of the Bible that the boards of the tabernacle, which were a cubit and a half in breadth, were cut from one plank of the breadth named; and also that the trees in the valleys of the peninsula of Sinai are being more and more sacrificed to the charcoal trade of the Bedouin Arabs (see p. 366), and therefore that no conclusion can be drawn from the present condition of the trees as to what they were in the far distant antiquity.)
the only tree in Arabia deserta from which planks could be cut, and the wood of which is very light and yet very durable.
Exo 25:6
Oil for the candlestick (see at Exo 27:20). בּשׂמים perfumes, spices for the anointing oil (see at Exo 30:22.), and for the incense (הסּמּים, lit., the scents, because the materials of which it was composed were not all of them fragrant; see at Exo 30:34.).
Exo 25:7
Lastly, precious stones, שׁהם אבני probably beryls (see at Gen 2:12), for the ephod (Exo 28:9), and מלּאים אבני, lit., stones of filling, i.e., jewels that are set (see Exo 28:16.). On ephod (אפד), see at Exo 28:6; and on חשׁן, at Exo 28:15. The precious stones were presented by the princes of the congregation (Exo 35:27).
Exo 25:8-9
With these freewill-offerings they were to make the Lord a sanctuary, that He might dwell in the midst of them (see at Exo 25:22). "According to all that I let thee see (show thee), the pattern of the dwelling and the pattern of all its furniture, so shall ye make it." The participle מראה does not refer to the past; and there is nothing to indicate that it does, either in Exo 25:40, where "in the mount" occurs, or in the use of the preterite in Exo 26:30; Exo 27:8. It does not follow from the expression, "which is showed thee in the mount," that Moses had already left the mountain and returned to the camp; and the use of the preterite in the passages last named may be simply explained, either on the supposition that the sight of the pattern or model of the whole building and its component parts preceded the description of the different things required for the completion of the building, or that the instructions to make the different parts in such and such a way, pointed to a time when the sight of the model really belonged to the past. On the other hand, the model for the building could not well be shown to Moses, before he had been told that the gifts to be made by the people were to be devoted to the building of a sanctuary. תּבנית, from בּנה to build, lit., a building, then a figure of anything, a copy of representation of different things, Deu 4:17.; a drawing or sketch, Kg2 16:10 : it never means the original, not even in Psa 144:12, as Delitzsch supposes (see his Com. on Heb 8:5). In such passages as Ch1 28:11-12, Ch1 28:19, where it may be rendered plan, it does not signify an original, but simply means a model or drawing, founded upon an idea, or taken from some existing object, according to which a building was to be constructed. Still less can the object connected with תבנית in the genitive be understood as referring to the original, from which the תבנית was taken; so that we cannot follow the Rabbins in their interpretation of this passage, as affirming that the heavenly originals of the tabernacle and its furniture had been shown to Moses in a vision upon the mountain. What was shown to him was simply a picture or model of the earthly tabernacle and its furniture, which were to be made by him. Both Act 7:44 and Heb 8:5 are perfectly reconcilable with this interpretation of our verse, which is the only one that can be grammatically sustained. The words of Stephen, that Moses was to make the tabernacle κατὰ τὸν τύπον ὅν ἑωράκει, "according to the fashion that he had seen," are so indefinite, that the text of Exodus must be adduced to explain them. And when the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews cites the words, "See that thou make all things κατὰ τὸν τύπον τὸν δειχθέντα σοι ἐν τῷ ὄρει" (according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount), from Exo 25:40 of this chapter, as a proof the Levitical priests only served the type and shadow of heavenly things (τῶν ἐπουρανίων); it is true, his words may be understood as showing that he regarded the earthly tabernacle with all its arrangements as only the counterpart and copy of a heavenly original. But this interpretation is neither necessary nor well founded. For although the author, by following the Sept., in which בּתניתם is rendered κατὰ τὸν τύπον, the suffix being dropped, leaves it just a possible thing to understand the τύπος shown to Moses as denoting a heavenly tabernacle (or temple); yet he has shown very clearly that this was not his own view, when he explains the "patterns of things in the heavens" (ὑποδείγματα τῶν ἐν οὐρανοῖς) and "the true" things (τὰ ἀληθινά) of both the tabernacle and its furniture as denoting the "heaven" (οὐρανός) into which Christ had entered, and not any temple in heaven. If the ἐπουράνια are heaven itself, the τύπος showed to Moses cannot have been a temple in heaven, but either heaven itself, or, more probably still, as there could be no necessity for this to be shown to Moses in a pictorial representation, a picture of heavenly things or divine realities, which was shown to Moses that he might copy and embody it in the earthly tabernacle.
(Note: The conclusion drawn by Delitzsch (Hebrerbrief, p. 337), that because the author does not refer to anything between the ἐπουράνια and their ἀντίτυπα (Exo 9:24), the τύπος can only have consisted of the ἐπουράνια themselves, is a mistake. All that the premises preclude, is the intervention of any objective reality, or third material object, but not the introduction of a pictorial representation, through which Moses was shown how to copy the heavenly realities and embody them in an earthly form. The earthly tent would no more be a copy of the copy of a heavenly original in this case, than a palace built according to a model is a copy of that model. Moreover, Delitzsch himself thinks it is "not conceivable that, when Moses was favoured with a view of the heavenly world, it was left to him to embody what he saw in a material form, to bring it within the limits of space." He therefore assumes, both for the reason assigned, and because "no mortal has ever looked directly at heavenly things," that "inasmuch as what was seen could not be directly reflected in the mirror of his mind, not to mention the retina of his eye, it was set before him in a visible form, and according to the operation of God who showed it, in a manner adapted to serve as a model of the earthly sanctuary to be erected." Thus he admits that it is true that Moses did not see the heavenly world itself, but only a copy of it that was shown to him by God.)
If we understand the verse before us in this sense, it merely expresses what is already implied in the fact itself. If God showed Moses a picture or model of the tabernacle, and instructed him to make everything exactly according to this pattern, we must assume that in the tabernacle and its furniture heavenly realities were to be expressed in earthly forms; or, to put it more clearly, that the thoughts of God concerning salvation and His kingdom, which the earthly building was to embody and display, were visibly set forth in the pattern shown. The symbolical and typical significance of the whole building necessarily follows from this, though without our being obliged to imitate the Rabbins, and seek in the tabernacle the counterpart or copy of a heavenly temple. What these divine thoughts were that were embodied in the tabernacle, can only be gathered from the arrangement and purpose of the whole building and its separate parts; and upon this point the description furnishes so much information, that when read in the light of the whole of the covenant revelation, it gives to all the leading points precisely the clearness that we require. Exodus 25:10
tEx 25::18
And thou shalt make two cherubim of gold,.... Which some take to be in the form of birds, and others of winged animals, such as the like were never seen, so Josephus; the Jews commonly suppose they were in the form of young men, which they observe the word signifies in the Chald:ee language; others, that they were in the form of an ox, the face of an ox and a cherub being the same, Eze 1:10 and indeed their form is best discerned from account of them in Ezekiel, and in the Revelation, and from the latter we best learn what they were; they were hieroglyphics or emblems, not of the two Testaments, as many of the ancients, nor of the angels, since they are distinguished from them, much less of the trinity of persons in the Godhead; but either of the saints and true believers in Christ in common, of both dispensations, legal and evangelical, and so signified by the number "two"; and being made of gold may denote their excellency, worth, and value in the esteem of Christ; for the precious sons of Sion are comparable to fine gold for their preciousness, solidity, and duration, as well as for their sincerity and simplicity; or rather of the ministers of the word in particular; and these may be signified by two, and at the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New; and the ministers of the word in all ages, and particularly during the reign of antichrist, are called the two witnesses that prophesy in sackcloth; and being said to be of gold, may respect the grace of God bestowed on "them", comparable to gold, the gifts of the Spirit of God they are furnished with, as well as the precious truths of the Gospel committed to their trust: of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat; not of gold melted and poured into a mould, and so received the form of the cherubim; nor were they first made by themselves, and then placed at the two ends of the mercy seat, and soldered to it; but they were made of the same mass of gold with the mercy seat, and beaten out of it with an hammer, and planished and smoothed, and so wrought up into this form, as appears by the following verse; and may denote the union of believers to Christ, who are one body and one spirit with him; and the union of the Old and New Testament churches in him, and who are but one church, one body, of which he is the head; and as he is the foundation of the apostles or prophets, on whom they are laid, he is the cornerstone in which they are united; and so it may likewise signify the nearness of the ministers of the word to Christ, their dependence on him, and their partaking of the same gifts and graces of his Spirit, only in measure, being made by him able ministers of the Gospel. Exodus 25:19