Exodus 27-31

This recounts more details of what God expects with offerings, sacred objects used in the ceremonies, priests, and ends with a bit more about the Sabbath.

A couple highlights that stand out to me:

1. The altar is basically a BBQ. It is made of acacia wood and entirely overload with bronze. This would make it light enough to transport, but prevent the altar itself from burning up.

2. God likes the smell of burning meat for the offerings. It seems like a strange thing to say, but really, so do we. The smell of a summer BBQ perks people up and itself makes people hungry.

3. Aaron is selected to be high priest. We get a huge amount of detail of the priestly garments with precious stones that have the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel engraved on each. When Aaron dies, one of his sons is to become high priest and so forth. The sad irony of this - Aaron is currently doing something very bad with the rest of the Israelites He's the high priest alight, but of worship for the golden calf.

4. God appoints two men, Bezalel and Oholiab, as artisans to lead the construction of all these items.

5. God explains the purpose of the Sabbath - a sign between God and the Israelites. This statement would imply that Abraham and Isaac were not required to observe the Sabbath rules as outlined later on, since they logically could not be "Israelites" as it was their descendant Jacob who became Israel.

Anyone who violates it by working and not resting will be put to death. So, how much work is too much? All we know now is that manna gathering is too much. We'll soon see that collecting firewood is too much work.

6. In Exodus 31:18, God gives the two tablets of stone to Moses. I know this is commonly interpreted to be the 10 Commandments. However, the text (NIV) says "covenant law" and not "10 Commandments." Various other English translations use the term "testimony". I don't remember seeing the 10 commandments and only the 10 commandments being written onto the stone.

This is clarified in Deuteronomy 5, where it states that the 10 Commandments and only the 10 Commandments were written on the tablets.