Exodus 25:2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Speak unto the children of Israel Doubtless when Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and abode there so long, he saw and heard glorious things, but they were things which it was not lawful or possible to utter, and therefore in the records which he kept of the transactions there, he saith nothing to satisfy curiosity, but writes that only which he was to deliver to the people. And God, having now solemnly ratified his covenant with Israel to be their God, and that they should be his subjects and servants, gives orders next concerning a place for his solemn worship, where by visible symbols of his divine presence he might reside among them as their Deliverer, Protector, and the great object of their worship, and might keep his court as their King, that while they had that place in the midst of them they might never again ask, “Is the Lord among us or not?” And because in the wilderness they dwelt in tents, even this royal palace was to be a tabernacle too, a kind of portable temple suitable to their travelling condition, that it might move with them. Probably there never was any house or temple built for sacred uses before this tabernacle was erected by Moses. And the frame, fashion, utensils, ministers, and services of it were to be such as would be a model of that more magnificent temple, its furniture and service, which was to be afterward erected in the land of Canaan, even as that temple itself, with its whole economy, was to be but a figurative resemblance of a more complete and spiritual dispensation under the Messiah. For these holy places made with hands were the figures of the true, Hebrews 9:24. The gospel church is the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man, Hebrews 8:2. And the body of Christ, in and by which he made atonement, was the greater and more perfect tabernacle, Hebrews 9:11. The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us as in a tabernacle. That they bring me an offering This offering was to be given willingly, and with the heart. It was not prescribed to them what or how much they must give, but it was left to their generosity, that they might show their good-will to the house of God, and the offices thereof.