“As the Lord commanded” ocurrs 28 times in the book of Exodus. It is an important key to the meaning of the story. Equally important is the phrase that is repeated twice in the last few verses of the book, “the glory of the Lord filled the temple.”
The first phrase describes the people’s attention to doing what God told them to do. Fresh from being delivered from Egypt, 6-15, fresh from all the provisions of God in their wilderness journey, 16-31, and fresh from experiencing the judgment of disobedience in chapter 32, the people learned, the hard way, to do what God commanded them to do…every detail! Oh, if only they had continued to obey God this well! The rest of the story will reveal how quickly they turned away from trusting and obeying God.
The second phrase repeated at the end is the absolute evidence of God’s faithfulness to his word. God promised to be with them–to live with them– and he did. When they had done all that he commanded them, God then filled the temple with his presence and was with them day and night. God gave them a visible sign of his presence just as he had promised. And God led the people as long as they would follow. The problem, as usual, is human sin. The very basic foundation of ALL human sin is rebellion. It is rebellion against what God says and trusting in our own wisdom and ways rather than God’s word. Every sin stems from this prideful arrogance. We really are deluded into thinking we know better. I Cor. 10 tells us that all these stories were written for us as an example of what happens when we obey or when we disobey the Lord. Reading the story of the Israelites reveals our own propensity to rebel. Oh that we would learn! The Lord longs for us to live with him and to be blessed.
Reading through the bible can be a life-changing exercise. If we see God as he is revealed and we see ourselves reflected in the stories, we can turn away or we can bow down. Either way, God’s glory will fill the earth.