And Moses reared up the tabernacle, and fastened his sockets, and set up the boards thereof, and put in the bars thereof, and reared up his pillars.
Don't wait to be settled before you worship God. A tabernacle in the wilderness is more needful than a palace later; our carcases may fall here, and we may be fixed in another world before we come to fix in this. Moses obeyed every particular in the order God appointed, repeating his obedience seven times over: not adding, not diminishing, not varying in the least punctilio.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 40:16-33
And he took and put the testimony into the ark,.... The ten commands, called the "testimony", because they testified and declared what was the will of God with respect to things to be done, or not done. The Targum of Jonathan says, he put the broken pieces of the tables into it; but what became of them, or were done with them, we nowhere read...
The work took less than half a year: subtract from the nine months between Sinai and completion the eighty days Moses spent on the mountain, the preparation days for the law and covenant, and the interval between his two ascents, and you see the remarkable speed of the construction. The erection began with sockets and boards, then Moses spread the tent covering and laid the two outer coverings of rams' skins and sea-cow hides upon the top.
AI summary
Commenting on Exodus 40:17-19