Exodus 40 Summary and Study Guide

• Moses finished the tabernacle, and then he could not go inside it. The cloud settled over the tent he had just raised, the glory of the LORD filled it, and the man who built it was left standing outside. This Exodus 40 summary and study guide follows the last chapter of the book to that moment.

Setting the Stage

Fifteen chapters earlier, God asked Israel for a building. “And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). He wanted a tent in the middle of their camp so that He could live there with them.

That request nearly died. Israel melted their gold into a calf while Moses was still up the mountain collecting the plans. God forgave them, Moses set up a temporary meeting tent outside the camp instead (Exodus 33:7), and the people eventually brought their gold for the real one.

By the end of Exodus 39 every piece was made, checked and handed over. Nothing was left but to put it up and see whether God would come.

Comprehensive Exodus 40 Summary

God fixes the day before Moses lifts a single board. The work has been finished since the end of Exodus 39, all of it made and handed over, and it sits waiting while God names the date: the first day of the first month, Israel’s new year.

When the day comes, Moses raises the frame, drops into the sand the silver bases cast from Israel’s own atonement money (Exodus 38:27), sets the boards and bars and pillars in place, and spreads the tent and its outer covering over the top. He puts the two stone tablets inside the ark, fits its carrying poles, lays the gold lid on it, brings it into the innermost room, and hangs the veil in front of it, so that the holiest object in Israel is installed and hidden in one motion.

The table goes on the north side and the lampstand on the south, facing each other across the room. The gold incense altar goes in front of the veil. He hangs the door curtain, sets the bronze altar outside it, puts the washing basin between that altar and the tent door and fills it with water, then runs the courtyard hangings all the way round and hangs the gate.

He does more than place furniture. He lays the bread out, lights the lamps, burns the incense, and offers the first sacrifice on the new altar. Then comes the last thing any person does in the book of Exodus: “So Moses finished the work” (Exodus 40:33). Moses had done everything he was told to do.

What happens next is not his doing. A cloud settles over the tent, the glory of the LORD fills it, and the man who built it cannot get in. From that day the cloud decides when Israel travels and when Israel stays.

One Word Summary

• Finished: the chapter’s own verdict on the work, in verse 33.
• Filled: what God does the moment the building stops, in verse 34.
• Shut: the door Moses cannot walk through, in verse 35.

In One Sentence

Moses raises the tabernacle on the first day of the new year and puts every piece exactly where God said, and when he finishes, the cloud covers the tent and God fills it with His glory so completely that Moses himself cannot go in.

Theme of Exodus 40

Exodus 40 is about God moving in. Everything the book has driven toward since Exodus 25:8 arrives here, as the God who brought Israel out of Egypt takes up residence in their camp rather than staying on the mountain. Three ideas run alongside it: obedience reported step by step, with the glory arriving on the far side of it; nearness and distance landing together, since the God who moves in is the God nobody may walk in on; and one arrival settling into daily guidance, as the cloud governs every stage of the march.

Exodus 40 Outline

• Exodus 40:1-8: God fixes the day and tells Moses where every piece goes, working outward from the ark to the courtyard gate.
• Exodus 40:9-11: God tells him to anoint the tent, its furniture, the altar and the basin, so that all of it is set apart as holy.
• Exodus 40:12-15: God tells him to wash, clothe and anoint Aaron and his sons for a priesthood that will run through their generations.
• Exodus 40:16: Moses carries out everything God commanded him.
• Exodus 40:17-19: The tabernacle goes up on the first day of the first month of the second year, as Moses sets the bases, boards, bars and pillars and spreads the coverings over them.
• Exodus 40:20-21: He puts the stone tablets in the ark, fits its poles and its gold lid, carries it in, and hangs the veil to screen it.
• Exodus 40:22-27: He sets the table with its bread, the lampstand with its lamps burning, and the gold altar with incense on it.
• Exodus 40:28-32: He hangs the curtain at the tent door, sets the altar of burnt offering with the first sacrifice on it, and puts the basin between them for Moses, Aaron and his sons to wash at.
• Exodus 40:33: He raises the courtyard around it all, hangs its gate, and the work is finished.
• Exodus 40:34-35: The cloud covers the tent, the glory of the LORD fills the tabernacle, and Moses cannot enter.
• Exodus 40:36-38: Israel travels when the cloud lifts and stays when it settles, with cloud by day and fire by night for the rest of their travels.

The Command and Its Carrying Out

Exodus 40 is built as a matched pair. Verses 1 to 8 are God speaking in the second person, telling Moses what to do. Verses 17 to 33 report the same list in the third person, in the same order, item by item.

Two things show up as soon as the columns sit side by side. The report keeps adding acts of worship God had not asked for in the instructions: bread laid out, lamps lit, incense burning, a sacrifice offered, hands and feet washed. And the last two commands have no matching report in this chapter at all, which is where the book of Leviticus picks the story up.

Observations from Exodus 40

The Word “Cloud” Does Not Appear Until Verse 34

Thirty-three verses of building go by without it. Then “cloud” turns up five times in the last five verses (Exodus 40:34-38) and never leaves. The chapter holds its most important word back until the work stops, and that order is the chapter in miniature: the tent is finished, and then God arrives and stays.

Seven Times, Moses Did It as the LORD Commanded

The line “as the LORD commanded Moses” runs through the report of the work in verses 19, 21, 25, 27, 29 and 32, with “as the LORD had commanded Moses” at verse 23. Verse 16 says the same thing over the whole set of instructions. It reads as a verdict handed down at every step rather than a summary given once at the end, and the verdict is that Moses added nothing and left nothing out.

Moses Works from the Ark Outward

God’s list starts at the ark in the innermost room (Exodus 40:3) and finishes at the courtyard gate (Exodus 40:8), and Moses follows exactly that path. The building goes up from the holiest point out to the fence, so the chapter opens inside the one room in Israel that almost nobody would ever be allowed to see.

Moses Is Named at the Start and the End, and Nowhere Between

“Moses reared up the tabernacle” in verse 18, and “So Moses finished the work” in verse 33. In between, the verbs run for fifteen verses with no named subject at all, and it is obviously still him. His name opens the work and closes it and sits on none of the pieces between. Exodus 40 treats Moses as the builder, and verse 35 is where the tent stops being his to walk into.

Moses Does the Priests’ Work Before Israel Has Priests

Tending the lamps and burning the incense were jobs God had given to Aaron and his sons (Exodus 27:21; 30:7-8), and Aaron had been named for the priesthood back in Exodus 28:1. Yet Aaron is not consecrated for the work until Leviticus 8, and in verses 25, 27 and 29 it is Moses who does all three. The likeliest reason is that the tent’s service had to begin before its priests were consecrated, so the man who built it opened it and then handed it over.

Difficult Verses Explained

Why Could Moses Not Enter the Tabernacle?

The text says why it happened without saying why God arranged it that way: “because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:35). The cloud was resting on the tent and God’s glory had filled it. Bible teachers offer three answers beyond that, and all three fit the text.

Some say the glory was unbearable at close range, as it had been at Sinai. Some point out that Moses had no summons to enter this time, and that God issues one at the start of Leviticus. Others read it as a matter of ownership, since the tent Moses built was now God’s house rather than the builder’s. Scripture does not choose between them, and neither should we.

Did Moses Really Do Everything in Verse 16?

Verse 16 is a summary of the whole set of instructions, not a report that all of it happened that day. “Thus did Moses: according to all that the LORD commanded him, so did he” (Exodus 40:16). Moses carried out everything God told him.

But the anointing and the ordaining of the priests that God commanded in verses 9 to 15 are recorded as happening in Leviticus 8, and Numbers 7:1 dates the anointing of the tent to the day it was set up. Reading verse 16 as a general statement rather than a same-day timetable keeps all three passages standing.

How Could Aaron Wash at the Basin Before He Was Made a Priest?

Verses 31 and 32 look like a note about the basin’s ongoing use rather than a record of that first day. “When they went into the tent of the congregation, and when they came near unto the altar, they washed” (Exodus 40:32). Every time they went into the tent or approached the altar, they washed. Many Bible teachers read those two verses as a parenthesis, which is why Aaron can appear there before Leviticus 8 sets him apart for the work.

If Moses Could Not Enter, How Did Anyone Serve in the Tent Afterwards?

The cloud did not stay spread through both rooms permanently. Verses 36 to 38 already describe it resting on top of the tent rather than filling it, and Leviticus goes on to record Moses and the priests serving inside. Many commentators understand the cloud as drawing back behind the veil into the innermost room after that first arrival, which would leave the outer room usable while the glory stayed hidden where only the high priest ever went. On that reading the door was shut for the arrival rather than shut for good.

Common Misunderstandings

• That “Shekinah” is a word in the Bible. It is not in the King James text or in the Hebrew of Exodus. It is a later Jewish term for the visible presence this chapter describes, and it is useful shorthand as long as nobody quotes it as Scripture.
• That Moses was thrown out of the tent. He was never in it. Verse 35 says he “was not able to enter”, which is a door he could not walk through, not a man being removed.
• That the glory came down because the obedience earned it. The chapter sets the obedience and the glory side by side and draws no line of cause between them, and neither does the New Testament. What the order shows is that God came to a house built the way He asked for it.
• That every measurement and repeated phrase hides a doctrine. Counting how often a Hebrew word appears and then announcing what the number means is reading into the chapter rather than out of it. Where Scripture assigns a meaning to a detail, take it; where it does not, leave it alone.
• That the tabernacle went up exactly one year after Egypt. Israel walked out on the fourteenth day of the first month (Exodus 12:6), and Exodus 40:17 dates the raising to the first of that same month twelve months on, which lands it fourteen days short of the anniversary.

Christ Connection

The Gospel of John reaches back and picks up the two words this chapter ends on. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

God became a man, lived among us, and we saw His glory with our own eyes. The word John uses for “dwelt” is the word for pitching a tent, and the glory that filled a tent at Sinai now filled a body walking around Galilee. Exodus 40 is where God moves into a building. John 1 is where He moves into a life.

The other half of this chapter is the closed door, and that is the half the New Testament does the most with. Hebrews 9:23-24 says the tent was a copy of the true one from the start, and that Christ has gone into heaven itself to appear before God for us. Where Exodus 40 leaves the builder outside, the gospel opens the way in.

• The veil. When Jesus died, the curtain that shut the innermost room off was torn from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51), and a tear running downward from the top pictures a barrier taken away from God’s side rather than forced from ours.
• The way in. Hebrews 10:19-20 says believers now have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus”, and Exodus 40:35 is exactly the sentence that boldness reverses.
• The call. Even inside the Old Testament, God answers the shut door Himself, and He had done it once already. On Sinai the glory settled, the cloud covered the mountain, and “the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud” (Exodus 24:16). Moses waited six days outside that cloud, and on the seventh God called him into it. The same thing happens here, and the answer to Exodus 40:35 is the opening line of the next book: “And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation” (Leviticus 1:1). God called out to Moses from inside the tent Moses could not enter.
• The end of the story. The glory did not stay. It filled Solomon’s temple the same way (1 Kings 8:10-11), and Ezekiel later watched it leave (Ezekiel 10:18). The last chapters of the Bible bring the word back for good: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3). God will live with His people, permanently. What begins as a tent in a desert camp ends as God at home with His people forever.

When, Where, and Why

• When: The first day of the second year after the exodus (Exodus 40:17), a fortnight short of a year since Israel walked out of Egypt (Exodus 12:6), and about ten months after they reached Sinai (Exodus 19:1). God had made this the opening month of Israel’s calendar while they were still in Egypt (Exodus 12:2), so the tent went up on a new year’s day.
• Where: The camp at the foot of Mount Sinai, where Israel had been since Exodus 19. Position matters as much as region here. The tent does not go up on the mountain God had been speaking from, and it is not set apart at a distance; it goes up on level ground with the tribes camped around it.
• Why: Because Exodus 25:8 asked for it, Exodus 29:45 promised it, and Exodus 33:14 renewed the promise after the golden calf, so the book had been building toward this chapter for fifteen chapters. Moses records the setting up in this much detail because he had recorded the instructions in that much detail, and putting the two accounts side by side lets any reader check one against the other.

Key Verses

“On the first day of the first month shalt thou set up the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation.”

Exodus 40:2

God named the day the tent was to go up. Everything in the chapter waits on this verse, because the work was already finished and could have gone up sooner. The day belonged to God as much as the design did.

“And he reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the hanging of the court gate. So Moses finished the work.”

Exodus 40:33

He put up the courtyard around the tent and the altar, hung the curtain at its gate, and the job was done. This is where human work in Exodus stops, and the sentence lands like a full stop after fifteen chapters of instructions and building.

“Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.”

Exodus 40:34

The cloud came down over the outside of the tent and God’s own glory filled the inside of it. The Hebrew word behind “glory” carries the idea of weight, and the next verse describes it as something Moses could not push through. This is the verse the whole book has been walking toward, and it answers Exodus 25:8 word for word.

“For the cloud of the LORD was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.”

Exodus 40:38

By day the cloud sat over the tent and by night it looked like fire, and every Israelite could see it wherever they went. Exodus ends here, with the people still travelling and God plainly visible above them.

Key Lessons from Exodus 40

• Finished work waited on God’s word rather than going up the moment it was ready, because God named the day as surely as He named the design (Exodus 40:1-2).
• God’s record of the work is itemised rather than summarised, which suggests He notices each step and not only the finished result (Exodus 40:19-32).
• The goal of the rescue was never the exit from Egypt but the dwelling in the camp (Exodus 40:34 with Exodus 25:8).
• The filling of the tent happened once, while the guidance of the cloud came every day after it (Exodus 40:34 with Exodus 40:36-38).

To go deeper into the lessons from this chapter, read our full study: Lessons from Exodus 40.

Bible Study Questions

1. Read Exodus 40:1-8 and then Exodus 40:17-33 side by side. What does the second list add that the first one never asked for?
2. The line “as the LORD commanded Moses” appears seven times in verses 17 to 33. Why do you think the chapter repeats it at every step instead of saying it once at the end?
3. In Exodus 33:7 Moses pitched the meeting tent outside the camp. In Exodus 40 the tent goes up in the middle of it. What changed between those two chapters?
4. Verse 33 says “So Moses finished the work,” and verse 35 says he could not enter it. What do you make of a man being shut out of the thing he had just built?
5. Read Exodus 40:34-38 alongside Numbers 9:15-23. How did Israel actually decide when to move and when to stay?
6. The book of Exodus ends with Israel still travelling rather than settled in the land God promised. Why might that be the right place for the book to stop?

Frequently Asked Questions

Exodus 40, The Full Text (KJV)

Read the full chapter below for reference.

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

2 On the first day of the first month shalt thou set up the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation.

3 And thou shalt put therein the ark of the testimony, and cover the ark with the vail.

4 And thou shalt bring in the table, and set in order the things that are to be set in order upon it; and thou shalt bring in the candlestick, and light the lamps thereof.

5 And thou shalt set the altar of gold for the incense before the ark of the testimony, and put the hanging of the door to the tabernacle.

6 And thou shalt set the altar of the burnt offering before the door of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation.

7 And thou shalt set the laver between the tent of the congregation and the altar, and shalt put water therein.

8 And thou shalt set up the court round about, and hang up the hanging at the court gate.

9 And thou shalt take the anointing oil, and anoint the tabernacle, and all that is therein, and shalt hallow it, and all the vessels thereof: and it shall be holy.

10 And thou shalt anoint the altar of the burnt offering, and all his vessels, and sanctify the altar: and it shall be an altar most holy.

11 And thou shalt anoint the laver and his foot, and sanctify it.

12 And thou shalt bring Aaron and his sons unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and wash them with water.

13 And thou shalt put upon Aaron the holy garments, and anoint him, and sanctify him; that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office.

14 And thou shalt bring his sons, and clothe them with coats:

15 And thou shalt anoint them, as thou didst anoint their father, that they may minister unto me in the priest’s office: for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations.

16 Thus did Moses: according to all that the LORD commanded him, so did he.

17 And it came to pass in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was reared up.

18 And Moses reared up the tabernacle, and fastened his sockets, and set up the boards thereof, and put in the bars thereof, and reared up his pillars.

19 And he spread abroad the tent over the tabernacle, and put the covering of the tent above upon it; as the LORD commanded Moses.

20 And he took and put the testimony into the ark, and set the staves on the ark, and put the mercy seat above upon the ark:

21 And he brought the ark into the tabernacle, and set up the vail of the covering, and covered the ark of the testimony; as the LORD commanded Moses.

22 And he put the table in the tent of the congregation, upon the side of the tabernacle northward, without the vail.

23 And he set the bread in order upon it before the LORD; as the LORD had commanded Moses.

24 And he put the candlestick in the tent of the congregation, over against the table, on the side of the tabernacle southward.

25 And he lighted the lamps before the LORD; as the LORD commanded Moses.

26 And he put the golden altar in the tent of the congregation before the vail:

27 And he burnt sweet incense thereon; as the LORD commanded Moses.

28 And he set up the hanging at the door of the tabernacle.

29 And he put the altar of burnt offering by the door of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation, and offered upon it the burnt offering and the meat offering; as the LORD commanded Moses.

30 And he set the laver between the tent of the congregation and the altar, and put water there, to wash withal.

31 And Moses and Aaron and his sons washed their hands and their feet thereat:

32 When they went into the tent of the congregation, and when they came near unto the altar, they washed; as the LORD commanded Moses.

33 And he reared up the court round about the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the hanging of the court gate. So Moses finished the work.

34 Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.

35 And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.

36 And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys:

37 But if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up.

38 For the cloud of the LORD was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.