Big Idea: Worship involves a sense of God’s presence and a need for personal purity.

Understanding the Text

Numbers 7 ends with God’s revelation to Moses from above the ark of the covenant (Num. 7:39); it continues in Numbers 8 with a specific message from God about the golden lampstand and about the consecration of the Levites in preparation for tabernacle service.

More generally, both Numbers 7 and Numbers 8 are part of the final preparations necessary to make the tabernacle and its maintenance staff ready for regular service.

Interpretive Insights

8:2  set up the lamps. God’s revelation at this time relates to Aaron’s care of the seven lamps of the “lampstand,” the menorah (v. 2). Instructions about the lampstand had been given earlier (Exod. 25:31–40; 37:17–24; 40:4, 24), when it …