Terumah, Offerings
Shemot (Exodus) 25:1 – 27:19
Melekim Aleph (I Kings) 5:12 -6:13
MattitYahu (Matthew) 5:33-37
One of the joys of my life is working on a building project with the brothers that benefits others. Tomorrow, I’ll be happily working with a brother building a deck for another brother. Working with wood with a team of guys has always been a real joy in my life.
When it comes to building a house, the Creator’s ways are not like our ways. No builder on earth builds a house starting with the most valuable, interior furniture first. Why did YHWH our Elohim command Moshe to build the Tabernacle in the wilderness that way?
Interestingly enough, the Book of Exodus has no account of the golden calf rebellion. Instead, YHWH first gives us the solution to idolatry – building the tabernacle from the inside out. He knows that He made visually-oriented people who connect with the tangible things of earth. So He gave us a physical model patterned after His Dwelling Place in the heavens to show us how the Builder of the House, the Messiah, works from the inside of His people’s hearts outwards into their lives and into the world around them.
Messiah Yeshua builds up His people to become that Dwelling Place in which His Spirit can dwell. The Son of God is the Builder. You can see it in the ancient Hebrew letters!
The Architect and the Builder in the AlephBet
The paleo-Hebrew letters of the Father and Son picture for us the Architect (A) and the Builder (B). Here are the two words, Abba and Ben, in ancient, paleo Hebrew letters:
Abba – spelled Aleph Bet, means in Paleo Hebrew: ‘the Father is the Architect of the house.’ How? The letter Aleph pictures the strength of an ox.
Or, from the top of the letter to its bottom, the Aleph pictures the plan, the Architect’s blueprint, from the infinite Heavens reduced to a finite point to be seen as a pattern on earth.
This is better seen in another form of the Ancient Hebrew.
This is better seen in another form of the Ancient Hebrew Ben – is spelled Bet Nun. The Son is the Builder of the House, according to Abba’s blueprint, His plan.
According to Jeff Benner’s Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible (AHLB), the literal meaning of the Hebrew root word ‘ben’ is ‘to build.’
The pictographic letter ‘bet’ in the word ‘ben,’ the son, pictures the inside of a house; while the ‘nun’ pictures the activities of life inside that house. The ancient ‘nun’ pictures the quickening of life as a seed sprouting, or the path of a fish darting in the water. To life!
Ben, the Son, is the Life of the House, Who quickens the activities of life in the Father’s growing house. The activities of life in the house are the building activities that build up and grow out of the house for the Father, according to His plan. What a privilege for us to be a part of that Awesome plan! Now let’s look at how His House is to be built.
Build it According to the Plan
Abba told Moshe:
“According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it.” Exodus 25:9
We’ve learned that the Son of God, the Messiah in us, is the Life of the House that builds us up into a Holy Dwelling Place of the Ruach Elohim, the Spirit of God. (1 Peter 2:5)
Yeshua told His disciples that He is ‘the Way, the Truth, and the Life’ (John 14:6). When He declared this, Ben (the Son) declared His Oneness with Abba (the Father). These three titles are known by the ancients as the three veils, the three doors into the Dwelling Place through 1. the Big White Fence, 2. the Holy Place, and 3. the Holy of Holies.
He is the Life that quickens all other activities of life that build the house from the inside of the Holy of Holies outward back to the outside world. He builds from the inside all the way to the outside of the Big White Fence around the Tabernacle. Out there, others are compelled to come join in on the building project!
Abba wants more souls to come to build up His ever-growing, ever-building Big House project. This fulfills the very first letter of the Bible, the Big Bet of B’reshiyt, In the Beginning of the Book of Genesis. That enlarged Bet pictures Abba’s plan for a Big House with a Big family from the very beginning of creation! Be part of the plan, people!
Since the beginning, YHWH has been working on His plan to dwell inside His people. How can we know what our part is in Ben Elohim’s building project? The furnishings of the Tabernacle illustrate the relationships that the Son of God is working on every day.
In this Torah portion, we see the inside-out building protocol – starting with the Ark of the Covenant, then the Table of Shewbread, the Menorah, the coverings and framework, then the Brazen Altar… This is the fabulous pattern of how Abba works in building up benai Yisra’el, the sons, or the children of Israel.
What does that teach us about what He is doing in our lives as He builds a House within which He wants to dwell? Let’s study each of the furnishings by His order of building them up and how they relate and apply to our hearts and lives:
1. Ark of the Covenant
Abba gave us a pattern, a model of His Dwelling Place in the innermost part of a believer’s soul. He so wants intimacy with His people that His first command starts with the furnishing of the innermost chamber – building the Ark of the Covenant.
His love and mercy is so great that He starts with a wooden box overlaid with gold, covered by a mercy seat, picturing where He is seated upon the throne of the human heart. There our great High Priest, Yeshua the Messiah, has applied His own precious blood that now cries “mercy” for the soul (Hebrews 12:24) whom He redeemed.
Upon the Mercy Seat stand the arching Keruvim (cherubs). The cherubs guarded the Garden of Eden to keep Adam (man) from coming back to the Tree of Life (Gen 3:24). By His mercy, He allows the redeemed back to the place inside the ark, where the almond rod that budded is situated, the staff of Aaron, the high priest.
The almond tree is the first to blossom in the year and is fruitful longer than any other tree. Aaron’s rod would be placed there as a perpetual picture of how the born-again soul has eternal life inside and can continue to grow and bear the fruit of the Spirit at any age.
Yeshua is our great High Priest that takes the believer into the Holy of Holies, to the throne room of grace. There He had sprinkled His precious blood for our atonement and redemption. There is where we become one in Spirit by His grace, forever connected!
In this Torah portion, YHWH commands the Testimony (Edut) to be placed inside the Ark. Later in the Torah we find out that the Testimony is the two tablets of stone inscribed with the Ten Words (Ten Commandments) (Exodus 31:18).
However, the only word we find in this account is just the word for Testimony – Edut.
This word, Edut spelled ayin, dalet, vav, tav, in paleo-Hebrew means – to see and experience (ayin) entering into threshold covenant (dalet) secured by the (Vav) Man nailed, Who renewed covenant through the work of the cross (tav).
By this means, the Lamb of Elohim made it possible for His people to experientially keep the Ten Words, the Ten Commandments. By believing the witness of the Gospel, the covenant of Yah with man is renewed by the blood of the cross. Because of the atonement, His covering, we now have access to the building of the rest of the House of God.
2. The Table of Shewbread
The Table of Showbread shows us again that our King wants intimacy with His people by preparing a table for us. In Hebrew culture, there is no place of greater intimacy, trust, and covenant relationship than eating together at the Master’s table.
The crown of gold around the tabletop represents the royalty of the Divine King. What a privilege we have to break the bread of faces, the bread of Presence, with the King of the Universe face to face! Wow! That’s His perfect will for us!?!
The frankincense upon the bread benefits the whole person, that the Bread of Life, Who is Yeshua our King, offers to all who would eat His bread. Frankincense is known to enhance spirituality. Frankincense is known as the “king of oils:”
‘Frankincense oil is considered a tonic, as it benefits all the systems operating in the body, including the digestive, respiratory, nervous, and excretory systems. It also aids the absorption of nutrients and strengthens your immune system.’ (quote by Dr. Mercola)
Think about the applications to our spiritual lives, when pondering the frankincense on the Lechem Panim, the Bread of Faces. Breaking bread together benefits all our lives!
3. The Menorah
The third furnishing in the King’s House is the spectacular menorah. This lamp represents how the Messiah fills His people with the anointing of His Spirit and lights us up to burn bright for His glory.
It was built with the patterned features of an almond tree, believed to represent the Tree of Life. The branches picture for us 22 knops of an almond tree on 7 branches branching out, all connected as one piece of hammered gold. The cups of the lamps on top were all fabricated to cast light forward as one light, not seven separate lights. What a picture of oneness in the Spirit with our Messiah, the Anointed One!
You probably know of many more revelations than that; I’ve taught about it in many other articles. What a breathtaking site the lit-up Qodesh (Sanctuary) must have been!
4. The Connectors
More than the instructions on any other furnishings are the instructions given for the connectors and fasteners – the clasps, loops, sockets, and pins. Only 30 verses are given for the first three furnishings, whereas 56 verses describe all the rest of the Tabernacle, most of which have to do with its connections.
Do you see the connections in these instructions with each member of the body of believers? The children of Israel first brought their most precious materials together as a free-will offering to build the Tabernacle. This place could not be constructed by just one man but took all the willing children of Israel to contribute to building it by working together.
YHWH instructed the building of one tabernacle for all of the House of Israel. He did not give instructions on many tabernacles to be built for many households, nor even for the different tribes. This proves He is building us all together in the Messiah to be One Dwelling Place for Him.
Do we see ourselves so linked together as His Dwelling Place? If the Ruach Elohim (Spirit of God) dwells in our hearts, are we not to be spiritually connected with each other, upholding and securing other believers in Messiah? How are we doing with that?
Can you imagine Moshe allowing even one clasp to be missing out of 50 between curtains? Each one of us is an important link in His House. Each one of us is made of a precious metal – a precious, highly valuable part of making His House one in the Spirit.
Whether we like each other or not, His will is for us to be connected as one in Messiah. There are no out-buildings within the Big White Fence. Let’s leave the refuse and dirt we have on each other outside the camp where it belongs!
Let’s know each other after the Spirit, not after the flesh. After all, we only know Yeshua that way! (2 Cor 5:16) Let’s be looking for the invaluable beauty of the Spirit in each soul.
Twice in this Torah portion ,we read: And it (the Tabernacle) shall become one (echad – a unit). (Shemot 26:6b & 11b). Even the two houses of Israel will be one in the hand of Messiah one day, and prayerfully soon. One day, there will only be one house of Yah!
Terumah - The Free Will Offering
Let’s look into the Messianic connection in the name foofur Torah portion – Terumah:
Terumah in the paleo Hebrew means to those under the sign of the covenant, the cross (Tav) to lift up high the exalted Head (Resh) Who connects, supports and secures us (Vav) and tunes us into His frequency giving birth (Mem) to revelation and praise to Him (Hey). With that in mind, let’s willingly give our best towards lifting each other up, supporting one another, and to be in tune together with the Spirit of the Head of the House.
When we willingly offer the best that YHWH has given to His House, to His people, then He uses those contributions to build a dwelling place in which He is pleased to dwell.
Abba starts with the in-dwelling presence of His Spirit, Who writes His Torah upon our hearts and on our minds as symbolized by the two tablets inside the Ark. Then He sets a table for us to eat the Bread from Heaven to strengthen us. He then lights us up as a Menorah to be a shining light reaching out to the world. As spectacular as His Holy Place is, the greatest amount of instructions to regard is being connected with one another as one tabernacle, one Dwelling Place of the Most High. How important it is to be connected!
Last Shabbat we learned that the bond of a bond-servant with our Lord Yeshua is love – love for the Master and love for family. I love John’s words about how God dwells in us:
Whoever confesses that Yeshua is Ben Elohim (the Son of God), Elohim abides in him, and he in Elohim. And we have known and have believed the love which Elohim has in us. Elohim is love, and the one abiding in love abides in Elohim, and Elohim in him. 1 John 4:15-16
What more greater project could we work on in life than to become a Dwelling Place for the King of the Universe? We have nothing better to do than to participate in His building project in us. Be blessed by His abiding Presence and by the bond of His love.
David Klug