Exodus 25:7

_ONYX STONES, AND STONES TO BE SET IN THE EPHOD, AND IN THE BREASTPLATE._ Onyx stones, х_ 'ABNEEY_ (H68) _ SHOHAM_ (H7718)] - (see the note at Genesis 2:12.) It is doubtful what gem is meant. J.D. Michaelis supposes it to be the onyx with pale stripes. IN THE EPHOD - (see the note on the form of the ephod, Exodus 28:6.) An ephod was a square vestment covering the shoulders, and extending over the breast, resembling a sleeveless coat. [The Septuagint has eis teen epoomida for the garment worn over the shoulders.] AND IN THE BREASTPLATE - ornament used specially of the breastplate of the high priest, which was externally studded with precious stones (see the note at...

1-9 God chose the people of Israel to be a peculiar people to himself, above all people, and he himself would be their King. He ordered a royal palace to be set up among them for himself, called a sanctuary, or holy place, or habitation. There he showed his presence among them. And because in the wilderness they dwelt in tents, this royal palace was ordered to be a tabernacle, that it might move with them. The people were to furnish Moses with the materials, by their own free will. The best use we can make of our worldly wealth, is to honour God with it in works of piety and charity. We should ask, not only, What must we do? but, What may we do for God? Whatever they gave, they must give it cheerfully, not grudgingly, for God loves a cheerful giver, 2 Corinthians 9:7. What is laid out in the service of God, we must reckon well bestowed; and whatsoever is done in God's service, must be d...

Verse Exodus 25:7. _ONYX STONES_] We have already met with the stone called שהם _shoham_, Genesis 2:12, and acknowledged the difficulty of ascertaining what is meant by it. Some think the _onyx_, some the _sardine_, and some the _emerald_, is meant. We cannot say precisely what it was; possibly it might have been that fine pale pebble, called the _Egyptian pebble_, several specimens of which now lie before me, which were brought from the coast of the _Red Sea_, and other parts in Egypt, by a particular friend of mine, on purpose to add to my collection of minerals. _STONES TO BE SET IN THE EPHOD_] אבני מלאים _abney milluim,_ _stones of filling up_. Stones so cut as to be proper to be set in the gold work of the breastplate....

Yahweh had redeemed the Israelites from bondage. He had made a covenant with them and had given them laws. He had promised, on condition of their obedience, to accept them as His own “peculiar treasure,” as “a kingdom of priests and an holy nation” Exodus 19:5. And now He was ready visibly to testify that He made his abode with them. He claimed to have a dwelling for Himself, which was to be in external form a tent of goats’ hair Exodus 19:4, to take its place among their own tents, and formed out of the same material (see Exodus 26:7 note). The special mark of His presence within the tent was to be the ark or chest containing the Ten Commandments on two tables of stone...

INSTRUCTIONS CONCERNING THE TABERNACLE AND ITS FURNITURE, INCLUDING THE PRIESTLY ATTIRE. EXPOSITION THE TABERNACLE AND THE GIFTS FOR IT. The great principles of the moral law had been given in the Ten Commandments uttered by God amid the thunders of Sinai. The "Book of the Covenant," or short summary of the main laws, civil, political, and social, had been communicated to Moses, and by him reduced to a written form (Exodus 24:4). A solemn league and covenant had been entered into between God and his people, the people undertaking to keep all the words of th

ONYX STONES,.... So called from their likeness to the nail of a man's finger: the Targum of Onkelos calls them stones of beryl; and the Targum of Jonathan gems of beryl; and the Septuagint version, stones of sardius; and some take them to be the sardonyx stones, which have a likeness both to the onyx and to the sardius: AND STONES TO BE SET IN THE EPHOD, AND IN THE BREASTPLATE; two onyx stones were set in the ephod, one of the garments of the high priest, and an onyx stone, with eleven other precious stones, were set in the breastplate of the high priest: these stones were doubtless among the jewels set in gold and silver the Israelites had of the Egyptians, and brought with them out of Egypt....

3. THE TABERNACLE AND THE PRIESTHOOD CHAPTER 25 The Tabernacle _ 1. The freewill offering and the materials (Exodus 25:1)_ 2. The ark (Exodus 25:10) 3. The table of showbread (Exodus 25:23) 4. The golden candlestick (Exodus 25:31) This is another intensely interesting portion of this great book. To give a few annotations and hints on the tabernacle is an extremely difficult task, for there is such a wonderful mine of wealth here that a book of hundreds of pages could not contain all. The tabernacle concerning which the Lord instructed Moses was the earthly place of worship of Israel; i

EXODUS 25-31. P THE TENT OF MEETING OR DWELLING OF YAHWEH. To pass from the action and movement, and the jostling of old and new, in Exodus 25:19 into the group of Chapter s 25- 31 is like passing from the crosscurrents and broken waters of an open, storm-tossed bay into the calm and order of an enclosed harbour. It is explained by the theory, now generally accepted, that strange as it seems to our ideas we have here no ancient, much less contemporary, account of the planning of the Tabernacle in minutest detail, but the leisurely elaboration, by that school of scribes of which Ezra was the type and leader, of their view of what must have been in the mind of Moses, on the general assumption that the Temple at Jerusalem before its destruction, Ezekiel's sketch (Ezekiel 40-48), and Zerubbabel's reconstructed building could be taken as imperfect copies of the ideal once realised in the gold...

_Contribution of materials for a sanctuary_(cf. Exodus 35:20-29). All liberally-minded Israelites are invited to contribute the materials necessary for the construction and equipment of a sanctuary its fabric, its sacred vessels, and (ch. 28) the vestments of its priests. The materials are to include metals, textile fabrics, skins, wood, oil, spices, and precious stones. The sanctuary, when completed, is to form an abode in which Jehovah may dwell in the midst of His people (_v._8)....

ONYX-STONES—EPHOD—BREAST-PLATE— See ch. Exodus 28:6, &c....