Chapter 35
Moses repeats the Sabbath regs to the people.
2021 - This chapter also is a restatement of the covenant broken as it is renewed. The Tabernacle is to be built, still, as previously described. This is renewal of what went before, not just some sort of repetition. All aspects of that previous covenant are being renewed by the restatement of them in these chapters. Anything could have been left out, God could also have added anything. Not clearing the guilty may in fact have been added at this point...though it seems more likely it is a reminder and not a new covenant requirement.
2026 - All these things - the whole Tabernacle and its furnishings and the office of high priest and the sacrifices...ALL of that is put in place AFTER the people tell Moses they need him to be an intermediary for them with God. When the 10 were spoken to all, none of this was mentioned. None was necessary. It is the same today. Once Christ fulfilled the Law, we no longer need all these trappings of an intermediary relationship. Consider this in terms of Roman Catholicism and the continuing duties of priesthood. How can they possibly resolve the changes we see here, and the obvious and easily noted reasons for those changes, and then the NT verses about the fulfilled Law. I think there is enough right here, just in these few chapters of Exodus, to pull down the whole theology and practice of Roman Catholicism.
2025 - This verse:
27 And the leaders brought onyx stones and stones to be set, for the ephod and for the breastpiece, [Exo 35:27 ESV]. Valuable stones brought by the leaders. I wonder how it was that this quickly after leaving Egypt there was already an economic hierarchy. They had "spoiled" the Egyptians when they left. All had asked for "stuff", and all had received it. Yet here we are, less than two years later and the elders have "more". How might that have come about?
And another thought...Consider places where "private property" is forcibly disallowed. As in the case of Israel when they were slaves in Egypt, slaves in 1860 America, prisons today, the rank and file in China and Russia under full on communism. In a place where nothing can be owned such that the wealthy are in charge, what is substituted for wealth? Age! In a place where no one has anything, age and presumed wisdom become "commodities" and it is still that those with the "most" are in charge.
An offering for the building of the tabernacle and its furnishings taken.
Bezalel and Oholiab charged with overseeing the work.
This chapter seems to be a retelling of what had gone before - a summarized version of it at least. The items to be offered are listed again, but the tent of meeting and it's parts are listed in summary, not in the minute detail of the first time, right after the 10 commandments. MSB doesn't really say that, but all the references go back to that earlier version. MSB says this time they are actually building it, so maybe that is the difference. The first time, we read the instructions for how to build it, and after Moses comes down this time, they actually set about the construction. If so, they will be at Sinai for yet a little longer before they actually depart.