Ever stop to think why chapters 32-34 of Exodus appear where they are? I’ve been assigned to give a presentation on that issue this coming Thursday. For now, here’s something I read this afternoon which has helped illuminate the passage a little more:
At every key point the people’s building project contrasts with the tabernacle that God has announced. This gives to the account a heavy ironic cast.
1. The people seek to create what God has already provided;
2. They, rather than God, take the initiative;
3. Offerings are demanded rather than willingly presented;
4. The elaborate preparations are missing altogether;
5. The painstaking length of time needed for building becomes an overnight rush job;
6. The careful provision for guarding the presence of the Holy One turns into an open-air object of immediate accessibility;
7. The invisible, intangible God becomes a visible, tangible image; and
8. The personal, active God becomes an impersonal object that cannot see or speak or act.The ironic effect is that the people forfeit the very divine presence they had hoped to bind more closely to themselves.
(Terrance E. Fretheim, Exodus, pg 280-281)
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