By custom in ancient times, every man had a staff—a large, straight stick used for traveling, walking, and recording information. Often, information could be carved on the sides of the staff from top to bottom. Abraham would have passed his staff to Isaac, and Isaac to Jacob. In Genesis 32:10, Jacob says, “With my staff I passed over this Jordan . . .” On this staff would have been etched the family history, including the covenant promises. Later when Jacob was dying in Egypt, he leaned on the top of his staff and worshipped God (see Heb. 11:21). Jacob’s family staff would normally pass to the firstborn, Reuben. However, because Rueben defiled his father, it went to the fourth son, Judah (see Gen. 49:10).
Later in Scripture, when the son of the Shunammite woman dies, Elisha instructs his servant, Gehazi, “Lay my staff upon the face of the child” (2 Kings 4:29). Since all great personal events could be recorded on the staff, Elijah would have recorded the miraculous birth of this child (see 2 Kings 4:12-17).
When David fights Goliath, he takes his sling, five stones, and his staff (see 1 Sam. 17:40). David is prepared to record on his wooden staff his defeat of Goliath. When penning the twenty-third Psalm, David, the shepherd, writes, “Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me” (Ps. 23:4). This could allude to the Word of God that was given to him prophetically or to the fact that God’s promises to him are etched upon David’s wooden staff, ensuring him that God is with him.
Today, believers quote the written Word of God and activate the blessing of the Almighty by remind- ing the Lord of His covenant promise (see Isa. 43:25-26).
OCTOBER 23, 2021 Exodus 25:32-33 And six branches shall come out of its sides: three branches of the lamp stand out of one side, and three branches of the lamp stand out of the other side. Three bowls shall be made like almond blossoms on one branch, with an ornamental knob and a flower, and three bowls made like almond blossoms on the other branch, with an ornamental knob […]
These chapters deal with Moses’ ordination of Aaron and his sons. Notice that Moses became the mediator of the Law and the one who ordained the priests. Earlier, God had given Moses instructions for sin offerings (see Lev. 4:1-35; 6:24-30), but this was the first place the sin offering was performed. The altar was anointed by oil and blood, indicating the need for the anointing of the Spirit and the cleansing power of blood to deliver mankind from bondage and sin. The blood placed on the right ear, thumb, and toe of the priests came from the peace offering, indicating that the priests would walk and work in God’s peace and have the ear to hear God’s voice. The ritual concluded with the oil and blood being sprinkled on the garments of the priests, indicating these men of God must carry the Holy Spirit’s anointing and bear the burden of ministry when dealing with the sins of the people.
In chapter 9, the consecration concluded the eighth day. The fire of God fell from heaven as an indication of God’s approval (v. 23-24). This supernatural miracle of fire also occurred in the time of Gideon (see Judg. 6:21), with Manoah and his wife (see Judg. 13:19-23), when David dedicated the threshing floor (see 1 Chron. 21), when Solomon dedicated the temple (see 2 Chron. 7:1), and when Elijah confronted the false prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (see 1 Kings 18:38).
Jewish sages and commentators such as Rashi note that there is deep significance to why the leaders—the chief men over the twelve tribes—chose to assign a value to the offerings they presented at the tabernacle. Notice that the tribe of Judah gave the first offering, as this tribe would one day produce the kings of Judah and the future Messiah.
The Silver Charger (platter)—130 Shekels (7:13)
The first offering is a silver platter, called a “charger,” of 130 shekels. The number 130 is significant because Adam was 130 years old when he established the first family’s “righteous lineage” through Seth (see Gen. 5:3).
The Silver Bowl—Seventy Shekels (7:13)
The next offering is a silver sprinkling basin valued at seventy shekels. Its core significance is linked to the life of Noah. After the flood, his three sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—eventually formed seventy new nations and seventy souls came out of Jacob (see Exod. 1:5).
The Spoon (pan)—Ten Shekels with Incense (7:14)
According to Rashi, this offering of ten shekels is significant when compared to the Torah that Moses wrote in the wilderness. The Torah consists of five books and is viewed as one book, but it is divided into ten major command- ments containing 613 deeds and commands for the Jewish people to follow.
One Bull, One Ram, One Lamb (7:15)
The bull is for Abraham, the chief father of Israel. The ram is for Isaac, as it was a ram that enabled his life to be spared. The lamb is for Jacob, as the blood of a lamb would save his sons during the Passover in Egypt. These three patriarchs fathered all generations of Hebrews to this day.
The Sin Offering (7:16)
This atonement is believed to have been established for Joseph and for his brothers’ sin against him.
The Peace Offerings (7:17)
These offerings were for Moses, Aaron, the priest (Levites), and the Israelites.
All twelve chiefs of the tribes presented the same offerings, indicating that all the tribes were equal in the sight of God. The offering continued for twelve consecutive days. The number twelve speaks of government and divine order.
When we total the weights and values, we read:
• The silver vessels weighed 2,400 shekels after the weight of the sanctuary (7:85).
• The gold spoons (with incense) weighed 120 shekels (7:86). The shekel was a general measure of weight used for silver and gold. It is used of silver in Genesis 23:15 and of gold weight in Genesis 24:22. The weight here is the weight of the incense (ten shekels) on the gold spoon and is mentioned twelve times in Numbers 7:14- 7:80—thus ten shekels of incense on twelve different spoons (one from each tribe) is 120 shekels in incense.
• Sin offering: twelve bulls, twelve rams, twelve lambs, and twelve goats totaled forty-eight sin offerings (7:87)
In these chapters Moses recorded important laws of sanitation and purification. These particular regulations may seem strange to us today, but we must remember that when God gave them, His people were living close together in the hot climate of a wilderness for forty years. God prepared these guidelines to prevent transmittable diseases or viruses from spreading throughout the camp. The reason for these sanitation and personal hygiene regulations would not be understood and appreciated until many centuries later.
The writer S. McMillen in his book None of These Diseases comments on the bizarre remedies used in Egypt during Moses’ time:
“Several hundred remedies for diseases are advised in the Papyrus Ebers (written in Egypt). The drugs include ‘lizard’s blood, swine’s teeth, putrid meat, stinking fat, moisture from pigs’ ears, milk goose grease, asses’ hoofs, animal fats from various sources, excreta from animals, includ- ing human beings, donkeys, antelopes, dogs, cats, and even flies’” (page 11).
Because Moses spent the first forty years of his life in Egypt, he would have been aware of these Egyptian “quack cures,” yet none of these ridiculous remedies are found in the Torah. Instead, God the Creator gave unique sanitation codes to prevent the spreading of germs and disease.
One notable feature of these laws is that God believed in washing and cleanliness. God instructed the priests to wash their hands and feet before ministering and slaying the sacrifices (see Exod. 30:18-21). The inwards (entrails) and inside legs of the sacrifices were to be washed (see Lev. 1:9-13). A person touching a dead carcass needed to wash his clothes and his body (see Lev. 11:24-28) with running water and was considered unclean until evening. If someone touched a scab, a running sore, a possible leper, or anyone with a skin disease or infection, both the clothes and the person making contact with the afflicted individual had to be washed in water, and in some cases, running water (see Lev. 15:13).
In ancient medical circles, no one knew that certain diseases, infections, and germs could be passed from person to person through physical contact. God commanded running water to be used to cleanse and purify a person. The importance of washing was understood in the early twentieth century at the Vienna Medical Center Hospital, when doctors noticed that one in six women were dying in childbirth of infections. Previously, doctors had washed their hands in a basin of water. Later it was discovered this was a source of passing infection to the other women. Today, doctors scrub their hands in an alcohol-based soap or hand scrub and use warm running water, thus helping to prevent the passing of infections to their patients. This simple procedure was revealed to Moses 3,500 years ago.
Also unknown in ancient times was the fact that diseases, infections, and germs could be passed on by the bacteria on a dead carcass. Throughout the Torah, God emphasized the importance of washing when a person touched anyone or anything considered ceremonially unclean, such as the dead carcass of an animal or a person. Leviticus chapter 15 lists specific things that caused a person to be unclean and required ritual purification:
• Any bodily discharge or sore (v. 2-3)
• Any bed, chair, or clothes of a person with a discharge (v. 4-6)
• Any person who is spit upon by an unclean person must wash (v. 8)
• Any clay pot touched by the unclean person must be destroyed; a wooden vessel must be cleansed in water (Lev. 15:12)
• The law of washing prevented the spread of germs and disease during a time when the Hebrews lived in close confinement in tents in the wilderness. This law protected them then, just as practicing healthy sanitation today protects us from germs and disease.
Don’t Forget Your Paddle
In Deuteronomy, God instructed the Hebrews in the wilderness to carry a small wooden paddle on the side of their outer garment. When they needed to “ease themselves,” they would walk to the outer edges of the camp, dig a small hole, and afterwards cover up the excrement with earth (see Deut. 23:12-13). This rather strange process is another example of a life-saving sanitation code.
In Moses’ time, six hundred thousand men, not counting women and children, camped in a hot, rocky desert. If they allowed open sewage near their tents, dysentery, typhoid, and other diseases would spread quickly. Today we know that open sewers become a major source of disease in third-world countries. During biblical times, God established a simple yet healthy way to dispose of human waste, thus preventing the spread of dangerous diseases among His people. These regulations are as practical today as they were thousands of years ago.
OCTOBER 22, 2021 Exodus 25:31-32 You shall also make a lamp stand of pure gold; the lamp stand shall be of hammered work. Its shaft, its branches, its bowls, its ornamental knobs, and flowers shall be of one piece. And six branches shall come out of its sides: three branches of the lamp stand out of one side, and […]
Moses had married Zipporah—one of the seven daughters of Jethro, the priest of Midian—when he fled from Egypt after slaying an Egyptian taskmaster (see Exod. 2:21). Forty years passed, and God called Moses back to Egypt to deliver Israel. On his journey he took Zipporah and his son Gershom, who was uncircumcised. God’s anger led to Zipporah suddenly circumcising her son and accusing Moses of being a “blood husband” (meaning, “the marriage bond between us is now sealed by blood”). But Zipporah sees the shedding of blood in circumcision as unnecessary because she was unfamiliar with the Jewish law of circumcision. After circumcising her son at an inn, Zipporah became angry and she and her son went back to her father. God “let him go” (Exod. 4:26), meaning that she returned to her father and sent Moses alone to meet Aaron.
Zipporah was a Midianite (see Exod. 2:16), a descendant of Abraham through his wife, Keturah (see Gen. 25:1-2). After Israel departed from Egypt, Jethro brought Moses’ two sons and his wife, Zipporah, into the wilderness to be reunited with Moses (see Exod. 18:2-6). After the meeting, we read that his father-in-law eventually “went his way into his own land” (Exod. 18:27).
Here in Numbers, Miriam and Aaron criticize the Ethiopian woman that Moses had married. Some rabbis suggest that Moses divorced Zipporah, as she is not mentioned again, and that Aaron and Miriam are upset because Moses remarried this Ethiopian woman, whom he had married when he lived in Egypt.
However, the answer may be found in the writings of Josephus. According to Josephus, the first forty years Moses lived in Egypt, Moses defeated the King of Ethiopia in a battle and married the king’s daughter, named Tharbis (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book II, chapter 10). When Moses suddenly departed from Egypt at age forty, he left Tharbis behind. Believing he would never return to Egypt, Moses married Zipporah, a daughter of Jethro. Forty years later, Moses returned and brought the people out. Some suggest Moses may have brought his former wife, Tharbis, out of Egypt with him when he departed. Others believe that when Moses left Egypt, Tharbis returned to her land in Ethiopia.
Some rabbis suggest that this woman simply refers to Zipporah, and Aaron and Miriam were concerned that after Moses’ death, he would place his “non-Hebrew” sons born in the land of Midian over the nation. If this woman mentioned here was Moses’ early wife from Ethiopia, then this is perhaps why Miriam criticized him. It is conjuncture to attempt to prove which theory is correct.
The Old Testament is filled with types, shadows, and patterns of things to come. Types and shadows are taught in Christian theology as a form of biblical exegesis that reveals the amazing parallels between people, things, events, and the mystery of redemption concealed in the Old Testament. One way a Christian can prove the divine inspiration of Scripture is through understanding the amazing types and shadows, such as the prophecies of the Messiah and the plan of redemption revealed in the ceremonies, sacrifices, and ministry at the tabernacle. The writer of Hebrews does a masterful job comparing the first covenant and the sacrificial and ceremonial portions of the Law of Moses being fulfilled and complete in Christ’s earthly and heavenly ministry as High Priest.
The revelation of the tabernacle was given for people to apprehend God
The revelation of the tabernacle offerings was given for people to appease God
The revelation of the tabernacle ministry was given for people to approach God
What is a Type?
The word type is derived from the Greek word tupos and is found sixteen times in the New Testament. It is translated in the King James Version of the Bible as print (John 20:25), figure (Rom. 5:14), pattern (Heb. 8:5), manner (Acts 23:25), form (Rom. 6:17), and example (1 Cor. 10:6, 11). An Old Testament type is a person, place, thing, or event that resembles a person, place, thing, or event in the New Testament.
What is a Shadow?
The word shadow is from the Greek word skia (see Col. 2:17). A shadow is an imperfect image or copy that is a reflection of a true substance. A shadow prefigures the anti-type. Paul used the word shadow in Hebrews 10:1: “For the law having a shadow of good things to come . . .” A shadow implies that a reality is yet to come, but a reflection of what is to come is found in the past, or in the shadow. A shadow is a reflection of light cast upon an actual object. Concealed within the Law was the reality of the coming Messiah. The Old Testament holds the shadow and the New Testament brings forth the light.
What is a Pattern?
The term copy or pattern is the Greek word hupodeigma, a word that refers to a sketch of something in the future. The tabernacle furniture and services were a “pattern” of things to come and were patterned after the heavenly temple. Not everything in the Old Testament is a type, shadow, or pattern of things to come. However, there are many types and shadows found in the tabernacle, the priesthood, the sacrifices, and the priestly ministry.
What is an Anti-type?
An anti-type is the fulfillment of a type. From a biblical standpoint, the type is found in the Old Testament and the anti-type is revealed in the New Testament. Before His final act of redemption on the cross, Christ compared His future suffering to the story of Jonah in the belly of the fish for three days and nights: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40). In some of the catacombs of Rome, large whales are carved above many of the tombs as a sign of the promise of the resurrection. Another type fulfilled in Christ was the sacrifice of Isaac, which was a foreshadowing of the crucifixion of Christ (see Gen. 22). God provided a lamb for Abraham and He provided a Lamb for the world (see Gen. 22:13-14; John 1:29). Also, the story of Joseph and how he provided salvation for his brothers through his own season of “suffering” (see Gen. 37—47) was a picture of Christ suffering to redeem His own people from sin (see Heb. 2:9-10).
COMMONLY TAUGHT TYPES
People Who Are Types of Christ
The first Adam is a type of Christ, the “last Adam,” as Paul mentions in Romans 5:14 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, 45.
Melchizedek was a king and priest of Jerusalem, a type of Christ, a priest after Melchizedek (see Heb. 5:5-10; 7:1-17).
Places That Are Spiritual Types
Egypt represents the world system and spiritual bondage before conversion (see Gal. 4:1-25; Rom. 6:17).
Jerusalem or Zion typifies the heavenly Mount Zion and Jerusalem (see Gal. 4:25-26; Heb. 12:22; Rev. 21:2).
Babylon, in the New Testament, represents an apostate church system (see Rev. 14:8; 17:5).
Things That Are Spiritual Types
The tabernacle’s three chambers are a type of the tri-part of human beings: body, soul, and spirit (see 1 Cor. 3:16; 1 Thess. 5:23).
Water from the rock and manna in the wilderness are types of Christ, the bread and water of life (see John 6:32-35; 1 Cor. 10:4).
The brass serpent on the pole was a type of Christ’s death on the cross, bearing our sins (see Num. 21:8; John 3:14).
Throughout the notes in this Bible, I will point out various types and shadows in the ceremonial, sacrificial, and ministry services at the tabernacle and temple.
OCTOBER 21, 2021 Exodus 25:23-24, 30 “You shall also make a table of acacia wood; two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its width, and a cubit and a half its height. And you shall overlay it with pure gold and make a molding of gold all around. … And you shall set the showbread on the table […]
All men over twenty years of age were to be counted and a “sum” or grand total tabulated (see Exod. 30:13-14). This chapter lists the tribal leaders and the numbers counted. The census was necessary, with the loss of 24,000 men in the recent plague involving the women of Moab (see Num. 25:9), with the men dying in the wilderness, and others being born during the many years of wandering in the wilderness. Only Joshua and Caleb from the original Exodus generation were guaranteed an inheritance in the Promised Land.
Notice the total number counted in this census was 601,730 (v. 51). The Hebrews originally departed with 600,000 armed men (see Exod. 12:37), and after nearly forty years of wandering, their number had only increased by 1,730. This is because all men over twenty who departed from Egypt had to die before the new generation could cross the Jordan River and possess the land.
The book of Numbers tallies the number of people counted as follows:
