Sinai City

Today’s Reading: Exodus 29:1 – 40:38

Are you enjoying your accelerated journey through God’s word? I love exploring these familiar passages each time, and I can honestly say I always find something new. For instance, this morning, I paused on a sentence I’d missed over and over. Mind you, I’ve been reading the Bible for over 45 years, so I was amazed at this obvious find!

Here’s the sentence: “So the tabernacle was set up on the first day of the first month in the second year.” — Exodus 40:17.

Did you see it? ‘the second year’. Moses and the Israelites camped at the base of Sinai for over a year! Ok, maybe you knew that, but I find it fascinating. In all this time in one place, no tribes attacked them. God protected them. Imagine the scene! Over a million people with a million or more head of cattle, sheep, goats, and camels, camping, working, crafting, laughing, sharing stories. Children running in and out of tents. Births, deaths. There must have been several forges for the metal work. Women chatted as they wove cloth and embroidered it for the tabernacle. Fires burned as mothers baked bread for their families’ dinners. In many ways, they formed a major city. Yet no one attacked them. How miraculous! Isn’t our God amazing?