Exodus 26:19-30
THE BOARDS of the tabernacle stood upright, but they were not driven into the ground. At the bottom of each board were two tenons which fitted into two sockets or blocks of silver. If you turn to Exodus 30:12-16, and then chapter 38: 25-28, you will see where the silver of which the sockets were made came from. When the people were numbered, every man was to give a half shekel of silver as a ransom for his soul unto the Lord. The rich must give the same as the poor, and this “atonement money” was set apart for the service of the tabernacle. The silver sockets, being made of the ransom money, then speak of atonement, of the blood of Christ, which He gave as a ransom for many. “For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” Lev. 17:11.
This ransom money amounted to something over 100 talents of silver. Out of the talents one hundred sockets were cast for the sanctuary, “a talent for a socket.” Since silver speaks of redemption, so we have the blessed and precious truth that each believer stands before God on the ground of redemption, the purchase price being the blood of Jesus.
The Apostle Peter in writing to Christians speaks of the ransom money paid by the Israelites, and reminds them how much greater the cost by which they had been redeemed. “Ye know ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold... but with the precious blood of Christ, as of Lamb without blemish and without spot.” 1 Pet. 1:18,19.
There were one hundred of the sockets, that is, ten times ten. They then would tell us how the blood Christ, represented by the silver, fully met our responsibility toward God, has answered to all His claim and cleared us completely and forever.
Surely the remembrance of the great price paid for our redemption should make all of us who are the children of God feel how much we owe our Redeemer, and we ought to live only to please and serve Him.
“To live as those
Who bear a blood-bought name
As those who fear but grieving Him;
And know no other shame.”
To keep the boards from falling’ out of the sockets, they were fastened together on both sides and at the end by five bars of wood covered with gold, passing through golden rings. The boards were coupled at the corners by rings. Since the ring is a symbol of security, and is endless, and since the bars were to strengthen and secure the framework, perhaps we have here a type of the eternal security of the believer, as also of the Church. Some also see in the five bars a type of the five gifts to the Church, given “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” (Eph. 4:11-13).
ML-07/19/1970