Leviticus 3-5: Admission of Sin

In these first few chapters of Leviticus we learn of the many different types of offerings that could be made at the tabernacle through the priests -- burnt offerings, peace offerings, and offerings for sin. There really isn't a whole lot revealed to us here, mainly just straightforward instruction on the exact procedure for sacrificing a victim. I did find it interesting, however, when it came to the how and why of atonement for sin. What we see, essentially, in the ancient Book of Leviticus is a precedent for the sacrament of penance. In Exodus we are given the Law -- the list of rules to live by. But what if we should break one of those rules? We begin to see the answer to that question in Leviticus. The Law, as handed down to Moses from God, requires a lot from the transgressor. It's not enough for the sinner to think to himself, "I'm sorry," and move on. He or she must procure a sacrificial victim, must approach the altar of the tabernacle, must tell his or her sin to the priest, and then must cooperate in the sin offering ritual, to be fully expiated and reconciled with God. Leviticus 5:5 says, "Let him do penance for his sin." It is only by implication from the text in Leviticus that we know a full confession had to be made by the sinner. For it is written, "He shall offer of the flocks a ram without blemish to the priest, according to the measure, and estimation of the sin; and the priest shall pray for him, because he did it ignorantly: and it shall be forgiven him" (Leviticus 5:18). Therefore, the sacrificial victim depended on the nature of the sin, and there was no way for the priest to know what type of victim was necessary unless a confession had been made. Further clarification, though, is made once and for all in Numbers, when it is said of the children of Israel: "When a man or woman shall have committed any of all the sins that men are wont to commit .... they shall confess their sin" (Numbers 5:6-7). And thus we see the spirit of this Levitical Law still enacted today in our God-given gift of the sacrament of penance.

Leviticus 1-2: On the Nature of Sacrifice

After reading the first two chapters of Leviticus, a couple of questions came to mind. The main one is what, in the end, is the significance of the Levitical priesthood? And the other question actually concerns an enigmatic figure from Genesis, Melchisedech the priest.

Concerning the Levitical Law my commentary notes: "The laws which [God] enacts, are such as suited the Jewish people: they were not able to rise all at once to perfection; but these laws guide them, as it were, on the road." From this quote I gather that the detailed Law we read of in Exodus and Leviticus and the rest of the Pentateuch is really only relevant to the ancient Jews. That it was an imperfect law that was meant to be temporary until Christ brought the new and fulfilled Law. But is this completely true? I wonder why these books of Levitical Law have remained part of the canon of Scripture, then, if they no longer hold relevance. Well, the obvious answer must be that they do still hold relevance, and my quest now is to understand how they do. For starters, my commentary further notes that "if we confine ourselves to the letter, we may say these precepts are not good, and carnal (Hebrews 7:16), but if we consider the spirit, we shall confess that they are excellent, and spiritual (Romans 7:14; 2 Corinthians 3:6)." That distinction between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, I think, is going to go a long way in explaining many things I am about to read in the Book of Leviticus. And I think the confusion that arises in distinguishing what is the letter and what is the spirit leads to many problems of interpretation that we hear of today.

The other question, regarding Melchisedech, is something that I will probably return to many times while reading Leviticus (and throughout the Bible as a whole, probably). It appears that there are two significant priesthoods contained in the Old Testament -- that of the Levites and that of Melchisedech. We are obviously given a large amount of information concerning the Levitical priesthood, but we are told nearly nothing about the order of Melchisedech. And yet, as we've been told, the Levitical priesthood was imperfect and temporary. And the order of Melchisedech seems to be more aligned with the perfect and eternal priesthood ushered in by Christ. We are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews that "if then perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law) what further need was there that another priest should rise, according to the order of Melchisedech and not be called according to the order of Aaron?" (Hebrews 7:11). At this point, I'm simply bringing the topic up, and I plan to return to it as I progress through Scripture. I just find the person of Melchisedech, who sacrificed using bread and wine rather than a bloody animal, truly interesting and captivating.

Concluding Thoughts On Exodus

The second book of the Bible was quite illuminating. I had never known that so much of the Mosaic Law could still be found in trace elements within Christian tradition. For me, and possibly for others, there had been an assumption that the Old Testament was full of foreign things that had little to do with Christianity today. What I failed to see was the big picture. The Old Testament and the New are part of a larger whole. They must be viewed together as part of the same Divine plan. Concerning the events described in Exodus, my biblical commentary mentions that "the laws prescribed by God to His people, the sacrifices, tabernacle, etc., were all intended to prefigure the Christian dispensation." Biblical scholar Bernard O'Reilly further says that "the law ... given to Israel on Mount Sinai, together with the detailed legislation concerning the chosen people's religion and government, all foreshadowed the more perfect Law to be given by Christ to His church and for the benefit of the whole world. Equally typical and prophetic of the sacraments and graces of the New Law were the manna, the water from the rock, the brazen serpent, and, indeed, all the incidents of the people's life during the forty years' wandering in the wilderness. / The whole of Exodus must be read in the light of Christian revelation to be understood and appreciated."

To throw even more light on this issue, I feel I must include some passages from Scott Hahn's book Reasons to Believe. I must credit Hahn for being the first to truly show me that the Bible as a whole contains a Divine plan of epic proportions the likes of which the average Christian is completely unaware, and it all hinges on the covenantal relationship between God and man. And one cannot even begin to understand God's covenants without studying the Old Testament. Therefore, concerning the Book of Exodus, this is what Scott Hahn has to say:

"Exodus, ... the biblical narrative describing Israel's liberation, everywhere echoes the Genesis narrative of creation. Israel is delivered through water as a new creation. The cloud of divine presence covers Mount Sinai for six days before God calls Moses, on the seventh day, to enter the cloud and receive the blueprint for God's dwelling (Exodus 24). God's instructions appear in sevens, again like His work of creation, and His seven commands conclude with ordinances for observance of the seventh day, the Sabbath. The making of the priestly vestments and the building of the tabernacle recall the creation narrative. In both, the work proceeds through seven stages (which, in Exodus, conclude with 'as the Lord commanded Moses'). Moses beholds his handiwork, as God did in Genesis, and blesses it (Exodus 39:43). As God 'finished His work,' so Moses 'finished the work' (Genesis 2:1-2; Exodus 40:34). And as God rested on the seventh day, blessing and hallowing it, so when Moses finished his work, the divine presence filled the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34).
With the Exodus, God restored a royal priesthood, a priestly kingship. He declared Israel to be His 'peculiar possession above all people ... a priestly kingdom and a holy nation' (Exodus 19:5-6).
Nevertheless, just as the Israelites received Adam's vocation, they also perpetrated an Adam-like fall from grace. And just as the original fall had resulted in exile and de-consecration of the royal-priestly figure, so too did Israel's idolatrous worship of the golden calf. God disinherited His people, pointedly telling Moses that they are 'thy people, which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt' (Exodus 32:7). In defiling itself through ritual rebellion, Israel, like Adam, had become unfit for the divine vocation. And never again does the Old Testament use the royal-priestly title of Exodus 19:6 to describe the people of Israel.
Still, on the strength of His covenant with their father Abraham (see Exodus 32:13), God spared Israel and permitted the tribes, eventually, to enter the promised land. So God's people experienced, again, a partial restoration."

I move on now to the Book of Leviticus. I'm wading now waist-deep in the Law and moving into even deeper waters. Leviticus is going to prove even more challenging, especially in light of the fact that many detractors today love to quote from its pages regulations which to the modern mind sound outrageous. I'm looking forward to this next stage of the journey.

Exodus 39-40

Exodus is finished, and before I post my final thoughts I figured I'd comment one last time on my impressions of the tabernacle and ancient Jewish worship. Essentially Exodus is a book split in two. The first half of the book is very storylike and sequential (meaning that it reads like an epic poem or a fast-paced narrative). But the second half of Exodus suddenly grinds to a halt and we are met with a barrage of rules, instructions, and regulations. The second half of Exodus is essentially an inside look at a very important conversation that took place between God and His prophet Moses. The action-packed events of the first half culminate in a mass of people alone in the desert waiting for something to do next. And this is when Moses's real purpose comes into play. Of course leading his people out from slavery and into freedom was an extremely significant accomplishment. But the events of the first half of Exodus in and of themselves don't tell us much. We see God's wonders, which is awe-inspiring, but in the second half we see God's plans, which is what pertains to us today. So now that the Hebrews are free and in the desert, what's next? What's next is precisely how they should live their lives if they are to remain in God's favor. How they are to worship, how they are to behave, how they are to approach their Lord. Many people, especially today, like to pretend that these things don't really matter; that anyone should be able to behave any way he or she likes; that anyone should be able to approach the Lord in any way, shape, or form. If there is anything I've learned from the Book of Exodus, it's that God is a meticulous God. He prefers one way to another way. And though the particular details of worship may have changed with the coming of the New Law, God Himself does not change.

Exodus 35-38

Not much to report at this point. Chapters 35, 36, 37, and 38 almost exclusively deal with the construction of the tabernacle, and therefore each detail is basically a repetition of the instructions given back in Chapters 25-30. In fact, my commentary notes that these last chapters of Exodus may be summed up by the simple declaration: "The workmen did all according to God's prescription."

The one thing I did find new and interesting, though, was in Chapter 38 when Moses mentions certain "women that watched at the door of the tabernacle" (Exodus 38:8). I referred to my commentary for clarification, and it appears that it was a custom for very pious and devout women to simply "watch" or pray and adore at the entrance to the tabernacle, thus worshipping God over and above what was required of them. We see evidence of this custom in the New Testament when the child Jesus is presented at the Temple and Luke tells us of a woman named Anna who "was a widow until fourscore and four years: who departed not from the temple, by fastings and prayers serving night and day" (Luke 2:37). Thus a tradition which established itself very early on (almost immediately upon the construction of the tabernacle) and continued with the construction of the Temple, even today can be seen in the practice of Eucharistic adoration. Anna is described as "serving night and day," just as men and women during adoration can spend entire nights with the Divine Presence of our Lord. These women mentioned in Exodus are excellent examples for us of faithful and passionate followers of God, giving their all for Him by simply offering their presence at His dwelling place.

Exodus 34 - Broken Laws and Horns of Light

Many theories have been put forth as to why the tablets of the Law had to be destroyed and re-made. There is the surface reason, of course, that Moses destroyed the first tablets in a fit of anger over the people's fall into idolatry. But usually the Bible operates on many levels, and it seems a strange case that there had to be a "do over" when it came to God's written Commandments. One theory is that the second tablet wasn't as sacred as the first. The reason for this theory is that in Exodus it appears that God Himself writes the Commands on the first stone, while Moses writes it on the second, thus making the latter imperfect. Since the people blew it concerning the first tablet, they get a lesser version for the second. Another theory is that the breaking of the first Law symbolizes the coming of the Messiah and the fulfillment of the Old Law in favor of the New. This does make sense symbolically. God gave Moses a written covenant, a certain way for the people to act, they disobeyed, and so a new covenant had to be made. The exact same thing can be said for the need for Jesus Christ to come and give us the New Law. There is another theory, however, that I had never heard of and which I find the most interesting. It speaks of God's Mercy and how much we are in need of it based on how frequently we break His covenant with us. The first tablets God gives to Moses contain the pure Covenant, written by the finger of God, to provide the people of God a brand new start, a new beginning for a chance to walk with the Lord -- this is our baptism. When we are baptized we are given a Law to follow of which we had before been ignorant. We are new and pure and given a glorious opportunity to walk with the Lord. But, who can remain pure? We are human, thus we are fallen, and we will, at some point or another, break God's covenant by sinning, just as the Israelites broke the Law by worshiping the golden calf. The Law is destroyed, the covenant shattered, just as Moses shattered it upon the ground. What now? Are we forever doomed and cursed to remain barred from God's Law? By the Mercy of God, no! God, in His infinite compassion for us, re-writes the Law and allows us to return into it. The stone tablets are reconstructed, the Law is re-written upon it, and the Covenant is made new again. After we are baptized and we sin, thus damaging our pure souls, God gives us the sacrament of Penance, which allows us to re-purify our souls back to the baptized state. In essence, when we sin we smash the stone commandments upon the ground, and when we confess our sins with true repentance, God re-constructs the stone commandments which we willfully destroyed and lets us try once again to walk with Him. And that is why His Mercy is perfect and infinite.

One last note about Exodus 34. In this chapter we read of Moses's transformation; how he came down from Mount Sinai after spending forty days and forty nights in prayer and fast, conversing with the Lord, with a new appearance. There has been some confusion over the centuries over what exactly this new appearance of Moses looked like. The verse in my translation reads: "And when Moses came down from the Mount Sinai, he held the two tables of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord" (Exodus 34:29). Some other translations read as follows:

"When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord." (New International Version)

"When Moses came down from Mount Sinai carrying the two Tablets of The Testimony, he didn't know that the skin of his face glowed because he had been speaking with God." (The Message)

"When Moses went down from Mount Sinai carrying the Ten Commandments, his face was shining because he had been speaking with the Lord." (Good News Translation)

It seems clear when looking at other translations that what is meant by this verse is that Moses's face was illuminated somehow ("radiant," "glowed," "shining"). The word "horned" must be then a very literal translation, and it is commonly believed that what is meant is that his face was sending forth rays of light like horns. Whatever the specific translation may be, the fact remains that Moses's conversation with the Lord was so special and so enlightening that it literally transfigured him.

Exodus 33 - Moses the Prophet

The conclusion of Exodus is rapidly approaching, and I'd like to make sure I mention, before I'm through, how I've been made aware what a special place Moses holds among the Old Testament prophets. I knew, of course, that Moses is one of the most dominant figures of the Old Testament, but until I really closely read the Chapters dealing with his communications with God atop Mount Sinai, I didn't quite grasp the gravity of it. In Exodus 33 we see Moses and God in intimate conversation. It is written in Exodus 33:11, "And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man is wont to speak to his friend." Amazing! What a privilege was granted to Moses! The next few verses seem to deal with this theme of "the face of God." It's an interesting subject to ponder. My commentary makes sure to mention that Moses didn't actually see the true face of God, as it is written in Exodus 33:20, "Thou canst not see my face: for man shall not see me, and live." And St. Paul tells us "that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9). And we know that in heaven God has prepared for us the beatific vision, and so it is not something a man here on earth can experience. But in saying that God spoke to Moses "face to face," it is supposed that He spoke familiarly with him, in a more personal way than He has ever spoken with a mere man.

Exodus 32 - Prayers of Mediation

Exodus 32 is of course one of the most famous chapters in this book. It is full of intense emotion and suspenseful action. The people fall back into idolatry; Aaron aids them in their sin; Moses comes down to find this abomination; God is furious; the Commandments are destroyed; Moses shatters the golden calf; God wants them all killed; Moses pleads on the people's behalf; many are killed anyway; Moses asks pardon on behalf of the people. It is clear that the worship of the golden calf, the specific event described in Chapter 32, is no light matter. It is a heinous violation so offensive to God that He nearly calls for the extermination of His people. In fact, upon first reading this chapter, I found a lot of its content hard to take. Why was God's fury so great? Why does He want everyone (save Moses) killed? And then, after Moses successfully pleads for God's mercy, why does He sanction the killing of 23,000 of the guilty? These are perplexing questions. It may be enough to say that simply reading a synopsis of this troubling event as captured in Exodus does not do enough to allow us to see the utter grievousness of the situation. The people forgot God. And what makes it worse, they forgot Him after He had saved them from the Egyptians, rescued them from slavery, kept them alive in the desert with manna, and gave them water from a rock to drink. But what's more, this allows us to see the sheer power of a mediator's prayers. Moses throws himself before the Lord and pleads for God's mercy so that the people may be spared. And God listens. This is the essential lesson of Exodus 32. Think of how much each of us has probably offended God every time we forget Him. God has given us His only Son (our Manna, our Water from the Rock), and we constantly slip into an idolatry of materialism and worldliness, utterly neglecting our Lord. Who mediates for us? Well of course Jesus Christ is the Great Mediator, and Mary and the saints especially pray for us, but there are men and women here on earth who pray for us incessantly, night and day, every day. Those who have devoted their entire lives to praying for mankind. Monks, nuns, friars, ascetics, hermits, postulants, and any religious who have and are praying that we may be saved, that God will not enact His rigid Justice, that He will act only with sparing Mercy. We must honor these men and women and think of them often and pray for them. (Sadly, some Christians and non-Christians think that the people who devote themselves to the religious life are a waste on society, that they contribute nothing. How little then is understood of their purpose!) God reveals to us in Exodus 32 that He listens to prayer, that He will relent on behalf of an earnest plea for mercy. Moses fell prostrate before God and devoted himself to prayer so that the general people would be saved; and, again, in monasteries, abbeys, cloisters, friaries, and priories across the world, men and women are lying prostrate before God in quiet prayer and contemplation so that we may be saved. The thought of it is awe-inspiring and humbling.

Exodus 31 - A Sabbath Reminder

In this brief Chapter of Exodus, God finishes His lengthy list of instructions to Moses and gives the command to put into action all that He has said. And I think the central issue in Exodus 31 is that, after appointing a specific person to oversee the construction of the tabernacle, God reminds His people of the commandment to "keep holy the sabbath day." Obviously the building of the tabernacle, along with the construction of the ark, the altars and tables, the vessels, and the making of the vestments, is going to be a time-consuming, laborious, toil-inducing job. So God, in His infinite Mercy, makes sure to remind everyone that, even though they are about to be hard at work with this project, they are not to forget about the sabbath -- in other words, they are not to forget about God. And this led me down a train of thought.

In a previous post I had written about the Third Commandment, and how I feel that today we are in violation of it due to our obsessive work "ethic" and our lack of observance of the Lord's Day, a day to rest and contemplate our God. Exodus 31 demonstrated to me the immense importance of this command. God wants a specific day devoted to Him! If we blow right through the week without giving Him that, we violate His Command!

This may be a topic I've discussed to death, but I truly feel that our modern work-obsessed culture is completely counter to what God wants from us. We've developed a societal mindset that industriousness and busy-ness are the pinnacle of human goodness. Where did we come up with this?! I recently read a great article by Edwin Faust called "The Day I Retired," which is all about this screwed-up, work-first mindset. Faust brought to my attention an essential fact of human existence that puts "hard work" in its proper perspective. At the outset of human life on earth, as captured in the Book of Genesis, God uses work and labor as a punishment for Original Sin! God says to Adam, "Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee, that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work: with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life" (Genesis 3:17) [italics added]. And further: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth out of which thou wast taken" (Genesis 3:19) [italics added]. There are two things we can take from this: 1) that we are forced to labor and toil as punishment for the fall of man, and 2) that God's original plan must not have included all this labor and toil. In a perfect world, as God envisioned it, we would be freed from the bondage of work and we would be able to contemplate our Maker and enjoy His Goodness and Mercy all the days of our lives. That is what ought to be held in high regard; not the backwards-thinking mindset of today.

I'm not trying to argue that we ought not to ever work or work hard. I know that we must provide for our families and ourselves. Work is necessary. But is it necessarily a virtue to let it take over our lives? Is it such a good thing to work sixty hours a week, weekends included, and therefore leave little to no time for Divine contemplation? If so, where is the Biblical evidence for this? So far, all I've read in the Bible stresses the necessity of a day of rest to forget about work, for work is simply a punishment for our fallen nature. In the Faust article, in order to show the hopelessness that work-obsession leads to, he makes mention of one of my most favorite Henry David Thoreau lines: "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." Faust elaborates: "Recall that desperation comes from despair, which is the loss of hope. Hope in what? In God. Men cannot be sustained by a hope that is not theological." Faust also quotes Shakespeare: "There is a memorable line in Shakespeare's Othello in which the villain Iago describes his duplicity by saying: 'I am not what I am.' How many of us might say the same?" In our society we are defined by what we do for work. How nonsensical! If work is our punishment, why should we be proud to define ourselves by it? For most of us, when defining ourselves by our jobs, we may accurately reply, "I am not what I am." I am a teacher, but teaching does not define me. What defines me is that I am a creature of God, and I don't teach for a living, but my living consists of making my way back to God in heaven. I must teach for the time being because our fallen nature has necessitated it, but it's not what I live for. If we live for our work, where does that put God?

Exodus 29-30: Sacred Incense

Truly one of the most enlightening things about reading Exodus so far has been the discovery of all the similarities between worship then and worship now. This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to gain from reading the Word in its entirety: a more adequate understanding of God and His dealings with man. Based on the total meticulousness of the descriptions of the tabernacle, the ark, the priests' vestments, and the form of worship, it is clear that God wanted something particular from His people. This cannot be glossed over. The essence of worship is to adore God, then and now. And of course the fundamental difference with our worship today is that Jesus Christ has taken the place of the sacrificial lamb; but, there are many facets of the old worship that are still used today because God has revealed them to be good. In Chapters 29 and 30 we learn of some of these things, in particular the burning of incense. Anyone who has been to a High Mass knows that incense plays a big role in Christian worship (just as it did for the ancient Israelites). Simply put, the burning of incense symbolizes our prayers ascending to God. There are some beautiful Biblical passages to illustrate this. Psalm 140:2 says, "Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight; the lifting up of my hands as evening sacrifice." And Apocalypse 8:4 says, "And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God, from the hand of the Angel." Incense provides a beautiful symbol for the prayers offered during Mass. During the Offertory prayers of the Mass, the Holy Spirit is invoked, and the blessing of the bread and wine includes this prayer: "Incensum istud a te benedictum, ascendat ad te, Domine: et descendat super nos misericordia tua" (May this incense blessed by You, arise before You, O Lord, and may Your mercy come down upon us).

Exodus 28 - "For Glory and for Beauty"

And so the parallels continue. Exodus 28 describes the appearance of the vestments to be worn by Aaron and subsequent priests. The level of detail is daunting, but, again, whilst reading through this chapter I couldn't help but think of the beautiful and ornate vestments still worn today by priests and bishops. The continuity remains; the Old Law illuminates the New. Among the reasons for God's requirement for so elaborate a vestment was this succinct declaration: "For glory and for beauty" (Exodus 28:2). Why should priests wear such lavish and showy vestments? For glory and for beauty! This is the worship of God we're dealing with here. My commentary mentions that "these prescriptions of God, which seem to us so minute, had a more sublime and mysterious meaning." It's easy to brush off things such as what a minister of God ought to wear -- it may seem, on the surface, as an unimportant issue. But in Wisdom 18:24 it is written, "For in the priestly robe which he wore, was the whole world: and in the four rows of the stones, the glory of the fathers was graven, and thy Majesty was written upon the diadem of his head" [italics added]. I loved the fact that the priest needed to have the words Doctrine and Truth inscribed on the rational before he could enter the sanctuary to worship. How gloriously symbolic! Doctrine and Truth: Urim and Thummim: Illumination and Perfection. These are the things necessary, even today, to piously approach the Lord.

Exodus 27 - "The Light of Men"

"That a lamp may burn always,
In the tabernacle of the testimony, without the veil that hangs before the testimony." (Exodus 27:20-21)

Here is yet another parallel between the appurtenances of the Old Covenant's altar and that of the New. In the previous chapter Moses speaks of the tabernacle and the veil and the Holy of Holies, all things found still on today's altars. And now it is revealed that a lamp of eternal light must always remain lit to signify the Divine Presence of our Lord. And so it is today, on every altar around the world, a sanctuary lamp (colored red) hangs eternally lit to make known the Divine Presence in the Eucharist. And of course light itself plays a significant role in the Word. Paul tells us to "cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light" (Romans 13:12). St. John, in his beautiful opening to his Gospel, speaks of Jesus as "the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it," (John 1:4-5) and that He "was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world" (John 1:9).

Exodus 26

"And the veil shall be hanged on with rings, and within it thou shalt put the ark of the testimony, and the sanctuary and the holy of the holies shall be divided with it." (Exodus 26:33)

I haven't much to comment on concerning this chapter, as it was entirely made up of straightforward instructions on the building of the tabernacle. But all throughout, the only thing I could think of was how alike the descriptions are to our modern-day tabernacles on our altars. And so the revelation I received upon this reading was in the complexity of the interconnectedness between Old Covenant and New. Jesus didn't come and wipe the slate clean; He came to fulfill, or complete, the Law. He didn't come to declare the Ten Commandments void (for example); He came and said, "If you love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15). He came to set us straight. And so it is only fitting that His Divine Presence be surrounded by the same appurtenances that housed Him in the Old Covenant. Our tabernacle today, therefore, has a veil separating us from the Holy of Holies, just as described in Exodus. Altars often have figures of angels on either side of the tabernacle, much like the cherubim of the Ark. Above you can see the tabernacle in the lower center portion of the picture, veiled and reverently housing the Divine Presence of God. For remember, concerning His people, God Himself said, "Make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell in the midst of them" (Exodus 25:8). By His Mercy, He still does today.