Exodus 37 Summary and Study Guide

Why would Scripture describe the same golden ark twice? God gave the design back in Exodus 25, and here a man actually builds it. This Exodus 37 summary and study guide follows what Bezaleel made and why the chapter records it a second time.

Setting the Stage

The thread starts at Mount Sinai, where God told Moses what He wanted built. “And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). God asked for a tent so that He could live in the middle of His own people, and He gave the plans for it Himself.

Then Israel made a gold calf and worshipped it, and the plans nearly died with them. God forgave the nation, the people brought their gold willingly instead, and by Exodus 36 the curtains, boards and inner veil were standing. What was still missing was everything meant to go inside.

Comprehensive Exodus 37 Summary

Bezaleel begins with the holiest object in Israel. He builds a chest of acacia wood about forty-five inches long and twenty-seven inches wide and high, covers it inside and out with pure gold, adds a gold moulding around the top, and casts four gold rings for its corners so that two gold-covered poles can carry it.

Then he makes the lid separately, out of solid gold. From that same single piece he hammers two winged figures, one at each end, facing each other with their wings spread over the lid and their faces turned down toward it.

He moves out of the innermost room and into the outer one. He makes a table of acacia wood overlaid with gold, roughly three feet by a foot and a half, with a rim, a moulding, four rings and its own carrying poles, and he makes its dishes, spoons, bowls and covers out of pure gold.

He makes the lampstand next, and this one is beaten rather than assembled: a single lump of gold, about seventy-five pounds of it, hammered out into a shaft with six branches, decorated with cups shaped like almond blossoms, and fitted with seven lamps and its gold tools.

Last of the furniture comes the incense altar, a wooden box eighteen inches square and three feet tall, overlaid with gold, with horns rising from the same piece and rings and poles like the rest. Then in one closing line he makes the anointing oil and the sweet incense, working as a perfumer would.

One Word Summary

• Made: the chapter’s one action, repeated verse after verse.
• Exact: every measurement matches what God gave earlier.
• Portable: rings and carrying poles on every principal piece.

In One Sentence

Bezaleel makes the ark, the mercy seat, the table, the lampstand and the altar of incense exactly as God described them in Exodus 25 and 30, so that the tent standing empty since Exodus 36 finally has the furniture God asked for.

Theme of Exodus 37

Exodus 37 is about obedience carried out after God has finished speaking. The measurements were given a dozen chapters earlier and the Spirit that equipped the craftsman was given earlier still, so these twenty-nine verses are a man doing accurately what he was told at a point when no fresh word arrives to prompt him.

Two smaller ideas run alongside it. Bezaleel starts at the holiest object and works outward, so the chapter opens where Israel could never go. And the rings and poles fitted to every piece keep the whole room ready to move.

Exodus 37 Outline

• Exodus 37:1-5: Bezaleel builds the ark of acacia wood, overlays it with pure gold, and fits it with rings and carrying poles.
• Exodus 37:6-9: He makes the mercy seat of solid gold with two cherubims hammered from the same piece, their wings spread over it and their faces turned toward it.
• Exodus 37:10-16: He makes the gold-overlaid table of acacia wood together with the pure gold vessels that stood on it.
• Exodus 37:17-24: He beats the candlestick from a single talent of pure gold, six branches and almond-shaped bowls and seven lamps all worked out of the one piece.
• Exodus 37:25-28: He makes the incense altar of acacia wood overlaid with gold, foursquare and horned, with rings and poles for carrying.
• Exodus 37:29: He makes the holy anointing oil and the pure incense of sweet spices.

The Tabernacle Furniture Inventory

Exodus 37 is a construction list, and the list is the chapter. Side by side, two of these pieces are gold all the way through and the rest are wood wearing gold.

A cubit is usually reckoned at about eighteen inches and a handbreadth at about three, so the ark stood a little over two feet high. The talent of gold in verse 24 is harder to pin down. We know Bezaleel used a talent. What a talent weighed in modern terms is estimated rather than settled.

Observations from Exodus 37

God Is Never Named in Exodus 37:1-29

The words LORD and God are absent from all twenty-nine verses, and so is the phrase “as the LORD commanded Moses” that stamps the chapters on either side. Exodus 39 carries that refrain seven times and Exodus 40 carries it six. Here there is nothing. The silence may simply belong to where the chapter sits in the story, since God had already said everything it carries out.

Bezaleel Is Named Here and Aholiab Is Not

“And Bezaleel made the ark of shittim wood” (Exodus 37:1). Bezaleel made the ark out of acacia wood. Every act in the rest of the chapter is his. Aholiab is named alongside him in Exodus 31:6 and Exodus 35:34, and he does not appear here at all.

Exodus 38:23 tells us what Aholiab was doing instead, working as an engraver, a skilled craftsman and an embroiderer. The furniture of the tent was one man’s assignment.

What Exodus 25 Promised Is Left Out

Exodus 37:1-9 repeats the ark’s measurements from Exodus 25 almost word for word, and drops three sentences. Exodus 25:15 said the poles were never to be removed, Exodus 25:16 told Moses to put the covenant tablets inside, and Exodus 25:22 held God’s promise: “And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat.”

God had said He would meet with Moses there and speak with him from above that lid. This chapter records the making, and the promises wait until Exodus 40:20-21, where Moses finally puts the tablets in and sets the lid on top.

The Chapter Distinguishes Casting From Hammering

Twice Bezaleel casts, pouring molten gold into a mould to make rings (Exodus 37:3, 13). Three times he beats, hammering a single mass of gold into shape: the cherubims on the lid (37:7) and the lampstand twice over (37:17, 22). Casting would have been easier and they plainly knew how. Scripture does not tell us why the harder method was chosen for those two, and it is better to leave that unanswered than to invent a reason.

Everything Here Was Built to Be Carried

The ark, the table and the incense altar all get rings and poles, and the phrase “to bear” turns up four times in the chapter (Exodus 37:5, 14, 15, 27). Nothing in this room was fixed to a floor. Israel was still a year out of Egypt and a long way from anywhere permanent, so God’s dwelling was fitted for travel, which may suggest that He meant to go where they went rather than wait for them somewhere.

Difficult Verses Explained

Did Bezaleel Make the Ark, or Did Moses?

Both statements stand in Scripture, and they are not in conflict. Exodus 37:1 says Bezaleel made it; Deuteronomy 10:3 has Moses say “And I made an ark of shittim wood.” The ordinary reading is that Moses made it the way anyone is said to build a house they commissioned, while Bezaleel did the skilled work with his own hands. Some readers take Deuteronomy 10:1-3 to describe a simpler chest made earlier to hold the second set of tablets, which would make them two different objects.

Was the Altar of Incense in the Holy Place or the Most Holy Place?

Exodus puts it in the Holy Place, outside the veil. Exodus 30:6 places it “before the vail that is by the ark of the testimony,” and Exodus 37:25-28 keeps it with the table and the lampstand rather than with the ark.

The difficulty comes from Hebrews 9:3-4, which mentions a golden object in connection with the inner room, though the King James renders that word “golden censer” rather than golden altar. Exodus itself is not ambiguous, and the incense altar’s whole work was aimed at what sat behind the veil, which may be why Hebrews associates the two.

What Was Actually Inside the Ark?

The answer changed over the centuries, which is why two passages give different lists. Hebrews 9:4 names a golden pot of manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. 1 Kings 8:9 reports that by the time Solomon’s temple was dedicated, “There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone.” Nothing was left in the chest by then except the two stone tablets Moses had put there at Horeb. The most natural reading is that each describes the ark at a different point in its history.

Common Misunderstandings

• That Exodus 37 says each item was made “as the LORD commanded Moses.” It does not. That sentence belongs to Exodus 39 and Exodus 40, and the word “commanded” does not appear in this chapter at all.
• That every ring, pole and measurement carries a hidden doctrine. Hebrews 8:5 and Colossians 2:17 do give us warrant to read this furniture as a picture of better things. They do not give us warrant to assign a meaning to the number of rings, and the text assigns none.
• That the chapter is a copy of Exodus 25 and 30 with nothing changed. Three things differ. The incense altar is grouped here with the other Holy Place furniture instead of being introduced separately as it was in Exodus 30. The promise sentences of Exodus 25 are dropped. And verse 29 compresses two long recipes into a single line.
• That the ark worked like a charm. Later chapters record real deaths around it, and they record them as they happened without supplying a formula. Those accounts do not hand us a rule, and turning them into one goes past what they say.

Christ Connection

The strongest line from this chapter to Christ runs through the lid Bezaleel made in verses 6 to 9. The King James calls it the mercy seat, and when the New Testament looks back at it in Hebrews 9:5 the Greek word used is hilasterion. Paul uses that same word family of Jesus in Romans 3:25, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.”

God publicly presented Jesus as the place where His anger against sin is satisfied, and He did it by Christ’s blood. Once a year the high priest sprinkled blood on that gold lid (Leviticus 16:14). The order Bezaleel worked in carries the same shape: a chest built to hold God’s law, and then a covering of pure gold laid over the top of it.

The other pieces point the same direction, and the New Testament makes each link itself.

• The table and its bread point to the one who said “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35). Only priests ate the loaves set out on it (Leviticus 24:5-6), and 1 Peter 2:9 calls every believer a priest.
• The lampstand, one solid piece giving all the light in a room with no windows, points to the one who said “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).
• The incense altar points to prayer that God receives. “Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense” (Psalm 141:2), and David asks God to accept his prayer the way He accepted the incense burned in the tent. Revelation 8:3-4 shows incense offered with the prayers of the saints, and Hebrews 7:25 says Christ “ever liveth to make intercession for them,” which means He is always alive and always praying for His people.
• The pattern itself was a copy of something real. Hebrews 8:5 says the priests served “unto the example and shadow of heavenly things,” and Colossians 2:17 calls these things “a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”

Bezaleel furnished a room almost nobody could enter. That is the measure of what changed at the cross, where the veil tore from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51) and Hebrews 10:19 could say we have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.” The ark itself did not last. Jeremiah 3:16 says a day would come when it would not be remembered or missed, and the reason is that what it pictured had arrived.

When, Where, and Why

• When: During Israel’s first year out of Egypt, at the foot of Mount Sinai. Exodus 40:2 and 40:17 date the raising of the finished tent to the first day of the first month of the second year, so this work falls inside that year. The absolute date of the exodus is debated, and this post does not fix one.
• Where: The camp at Sinai, where Israel had stayed since Exodus 19. The furniture made here was built for a tent, and where it would stand inside that tent had already been settled in Exodus 26:33-35 and Exodus 30:6.
• Why: Moses records the building because he had recorded the instructions, and setting the two side by side lets any reader check one against the other. Israel was never allowed inside the room these pieces stood in, so a written description was the only access most of the nation would ever have to them.

Key Verses

“And he made the mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half was the length thereof, and one cubit and a half the breadth thereof.”

Exodus 37:6

He made the lid about three and three-quarter feet long and two and a quarter feet wide. Scripture gives its length and its breadth and never once gives its height, here or in Exodus 25:17.

“And the cherubims spread out their wings on high, and covered with their wings over the mercy seat, with their faces one to another; even to the mercy seatward were the faces of the cherubims.”

Exodus 37:9

The two winged figures stretched their wings upward and over the lid, turned toward each other, and looked down at it. Heaven’s own attention is pointed at the place where blood would be sprinkled.

“And he made the candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work made he the candlestick; his shaft, and his branch, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, were of the same.”

Exodus 37:17

He hammered the lampstand out of solid gold, and its stem, branches, cups, buds and blossoms were all part of that one piece. Nothing on it was joined on afterwards, which is why the chapter keeps repeating that the parts were “of the same.”

“And he made the holy anointing oil, and the pure incense of sweet spices, according to the work of the apothecary.”

Exodus 37:29

He mixed the holy anointing oil and the pure sweet incense the way a perfumer would. Exodus 30 spent fifteen verses on those two recipes and this chapter gives them one line, which is the only place Exodus 37 shortens rather than repeats.

Key Lessons from Exodus 37

• Obedience does its work in the stretch after God has stopped speaking, when nothing new arrives to prompt it (Exodus 37:1-29).
• God appointed the gold covering, not the law stored beneath it, as the place where He would meet His people (Exodus 37:6-9).
• Skill handed back to God is worship, since the first craftsman God equipped by name spent that equipping on gold, wood and perfume (Exodus 31:3; 37:29).
• A God who fits His own dwelling with rings and carrying poles means to travel with people who are not home yet (Exodus 37:5, 14, 27).

To go deeper into the lessons from this chapter, read our full study: Lessons from Exodus 37.

Bible Study Questions

1. Read Exodus 37 straight through and note every place God speaks or is named. What did you find, and what do you make of it?
2. Set Exodus 25:10-22 beside Exodus 37:1-9. What is repeated word for word, and what is left out?
3. Why do you think Scripture describes this furniture twice instead of saying that it was all done as commanded?
4. Bezaleel is the first person in Scripture God fills with His Spirit, and the assignment is metalwork and carpentry (Exodus 31:3). What does that say about the skills you already have?
5. The ark held God’s law and the mercy seat covered it. How does that order shape the way you come to God?
6. Every piece in this chapter was built with rings and poles so it could be carried. What does that suggest about how God meant His people to live?

Frequently Asked Questions

Exodus 37, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 And Bezaleel made the ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half was the length of it, and a cubit and a half the breadth of it, and a cubit and a half the height of it:

2 And he overlaid it with pure gold within and without, and made a crown of gold to it round about.

3 And he cast for it four rings of gold, to be set by the four corners of it; even two rings upon the one side of it, and two rings upon the other side of it.

4 And he made staves of shittim wood, and overlaid them with gold.

5 And he put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark, to bear the ark.

6 And he made the mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half was the length thereof, and one cubit and a half the breadth thereof.

7 And he made two cherubims of gold, beaten out of one piece made he them, on the two ends of the mercy seat;

8 One cherub on the end on this side, and another cherub on the other end on that side: out of the mercy seat made he the cherubims on the two ends thereof.

9 And the cherubims spread out their wings on high, and covered with their wings over the mercy seat, with their faces one to another; even to the mercy seatward were the faces of the cherubims.

10 And he made the table of shittim wood: two cubits was the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof:

11 And he overlaid it with pure gold, and made thereunto a crown of gold round about.

12 Also he made thereunto a border of an handbreadth round about; and made a crown of gold for the border thereof round about.

13 And he cast for it four rings of gold, and put the rings upon the four corners that were in the four feet thereof.

14 Over against the border were the rings, the places for the staves to bear the table.

15 And he made the staves of shittim wood, and overlaid them with gold, to bear the table.

16 And he made the vessels which were upon the table, his dishes, and his spoons, and his bowls, and his covers to cover withal, of pure gold.

17 And he made the candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work made he the candlestick; his shaft, and his branch, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, were of the same:

18 And six branches going out of the sides thereof; three branches of the candlestick out of the one side thereof, and three branches of the candlestick out of the other side thereof:

19 Three bowls made after the fashion of almonds in one branch, a knop and a flower; and three bowls made like almonds in another branch, a knop and a flower: so throughout the six branches going out of the candlestick.

20 And in the candlestick were four bowls made like almonds, his knops, and his flowers:

21 And a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same, and a knop under two branches of the same, according to the six branches going out of it.

22 Their knops and their branches were of the same: all of it was one beaten work of pure gold.

23 And he made his seven lamps, and his snuffers, and his snuffdishes, of pure gold.

24 Of a talent of pure gold made he it, and all the vessels thereof.

25 And he made the incense altar of shittim wood: the length of it was a cubit, and the breadth of it a cubit; it was foursquare; and two cubits was the height of it; the horns thereof were of the same.

26 And he overlaid it with pure gold, both the top of it, and the sides thereof round about, and the horns of it: also he made unto it a crown of gold round about.

27 And he made two rings of gold for it under the crown thereof, by the two corners of it, upon the two sides thereof, to be places for the staves to bear it withal.

28 And he made the staves of shittim wood, and overlaid them with gold.

29 And he made the holy anointing oil, and the pure incense of sweet spices, according to the work of the apothecary.