Read Exodus 27:20–21
Questions from the Scripture text: Whom is Moses to command to bring what (Exodus 27:20)? For what? So that the lamp can burn when? Where is the lampstand (Exodus 27:21)? What is it before? Who may tend it? When, especially, must they tend it? Before Whom? How long will this be a statue? Unto whom? For whose sake?
What is the first thing we learn as the Lord moves from instructing about the tabernacle construction to instructing about the priestly service? Exodus 27:20–21 looks forward to the p.m. sermon on the coming Lord’s Day. In these two verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that the priestly service is going to be bringing and employing the people’s offerings before the Lord while communicating His favor to the people.
The people’s service. Everyone is participating. The Lord reemphasizes Moses’s own role with the “You shall command” of Exodus 27:20. And there’s the particular priestly role in the assignment given to Aaron and his sons in Exodus 27:21. But there is also the special effort and offering of the children of Israel. “Pure oil of pressed olives” refers to olives that have been pressed by hand or hand tool rather than crushed in the ordinary oil press. The Lord is involving all of His people. Each one’s participation is not only a privilege but a binding obligation. “A statute forever to their generations on behalf of the children of Israel.”
The communicated favor. The purpose of the great supply of highest quality oil is clear: so that the lamp will burn continually. Especially from evening until morning it must be tended so that the light does not go out. He Who keeps Israel does not slumber nor sleep. He put lights in the sky to govern both the night and the day, and He will later call Himself “the Father of lights” Whose giving of every good and perfect gift never wavers or shifts due to shadow. This is communicated in the service of the lampstand. The light of His Favor never goes out. In the very next section, He is about to begin giving instructions about the priesthood who will perform this service.
Throughout most of the period of the Judges, the lamp of God still had not gone out (cf. 1 Samuel 3:3), but this earthly copy would. Now, we receive constant benediction through Jesus Christ. Our priest sits above the heavens. He has fulfilled our obligations, and our walking in obedience here is supplied by Him through His Spirit. Though the Lord still chastens us in fatherly love, the light of His knowledge no longer shines in a lampstand, but it shines by faith in the heart in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6).
How have all your obligations to God been fulfilled? Yet, what duties has He assigned you in life? In His church? How can you know that you always have His favor?
Sample prayer: Lord, we thank You that now we have a light before You that will never go out. We know that the light of Your favor in Jesus Christ continually shines upon us. Grant that this would not be seized upon by our flesh resulting in laziness, but responded to by Your grace in us that we would love You by Christ’s loving and living in us, which we ask in His Name, AMEN!
Suggested songs: ARP51B “From My Sins, O Hide Your Face” or TPH275 “Arise, My Soul, Arise”
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