Exodus 36:13–14

Exodus 36 shows us the chosen workmen busy with their assigned tasks, even begging Moses to stop Israel's overflowing supply of gifts. All through Exodus 36–39 the doing gets as much detail as the plan. At the end Moses inspected everything. He saw that they had done it as the Lord had commanded, and he blessed them.

Look at the structure of the tabernacle in the wilderness, and you can see how important the "loops of blue" were. The loops and the "clasps of gold" joined the curtains together. They kept the visible unity of the whole structure. These loops and clasps might seem very small and unimportant. But without them there could have been no unity. The curtains would have hung apart from each other, however beautiful each one was. The display would have lost one of its grand features.

In the life of the blessed Lord Jesus, and in all the scenes and circumstances of that life, we see each distinct phase and feature perfect in itself. We also see all those phases and features perfectly combined, by the power of what was heavenly and divine in Him. The curtains of the true Tabernacle were beautiful in themselves, and they were also beautifully combined. Those "loops of blue and clasps of gold" linked them together. Only those who have been taught something of the holy mysteries of the sanctuary can see and value them.

Gold, as we shall see later on, pictures divine glory. This was what was always before our Lord: "Father, glorify your name" was His one desire. "I honor my Father." "I glorified you on earth." What a complete absence of self-seeking this all shows! But are we not reminded of something more? Obedience like this was human, yet it needed more than human power to offer it. No mere creature could render it on his own — certainly no fallen creature. The golden clasps remind us that the perfect character we have been looking at is not only human but divine. These clasps of gold were essential for uniting the coverings into one perfect whole. If they were left out, all would be marred.

Scripture does not mention them anywhere else, except in chapter 26:33: "And you shall hang the veil under the clasps." That line divides the thirty cubits of the whole length into twenty for the holy place and ten for the most holy. The number 50, 5 x 10, raises the thought of responsibility both towards God and among men. The entrance by the veil plainly involves that responsibility. To say more than this would only be guesswork.

Unity: golden clasps held the curtains together, "so that the tabernacle may be a single whole." How much more true this is of the church, that it is one whole. We have been joined into one body, a truth not known in Old Testament times. So we should live in keeping with that, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit.

There are, you will see, four sets of curtains. The first, innermost of all, is called the tabernacle; the second — those made of goats' hair — is named the tent; and the remaining two are called simply "coverings." Three terms, then, cover the four sets — and it is so in the original too. The two outer coverings were made of rams' skins dyed red and of badgers' skins.

On these beautiful curtains were laid curtains of goat's hair. They are called the "covering," or "tent," of the tabernacle. So the ten inner curtains clearly counted as the tabernacle proper. This tent was a size larger, because each curtain was two cubits longer. The width was the same — four cubits — but there were eleven of these, so the front one could be doubled over. The goat's hair curtains therefore made a complete covering.

The Scriptures we have mentioned show that the goat suggested the sin, the witness of it, and the offering to put it away. We have seen the hair of the goat used for deception; the goats themselves spoken of by our Lord in contrast to the sheep. Second, we have the garment of hair as the prophets' clothing, connected with the witness against sin. Third, we have the goat as the ordinary animal for the sin-offering. So the goat reminds us of our Lord as sin-bearer, who came "in the likeness of sinful flesh (Himself ever sinless), and for sin" (Rom. 8:3). But the covering was the hair of the goat, not the skin. This suggests that the sacrifice had not yet been offered, but points on to it.

This covering points also to Christ — "to His positive purity, or rather to that severity of separation from the evil around Him which gave Him the character of prophet. That severity was not in His ways towards poor sinners. It was in His separation from sinners, in the refusal to compromise, as to Himself, which kept Him apart and gave Him His moral authority — the moral cloth of hair which marked out the prophet." Zechariah confirms this: in that day prophets will not "put on a hairy cloak in order to deceive" (13:4; compare Matt. 3:4). So that perfect separation from evil guarded all that Christ was, as pictured by the inner curtains. It sprang from His positive, absolute purity. He could ask His enemies, "Which one of you convicts me of sin?" (John 8:46). His separation from all evil was so complete that He could even touch the leper and not be defiled.

The sixth curtain of the goats' hair guaranteed a complete covering for the inner curtains of varied colours. Half hung over the back of the tabernacle, and the other half was doubled or turned back in front. Some have thought that this made it more prominent, visible to all who approached the tabernacle, and this view fits the meaning of the curtain well. It acted, we might say, as a sign or badge for the whole house of God. It marked out the blessed purpose for which God had set up a dwelling-place with man. When a poor, weary, sin-laden Israelite turned his eyes toward the tabernacle, he saw no gleam of gold and no rich colours from inside. He saw the goats' hair. It reminded him that the One who knew his sins was ready to forgive them.