When Moses erects the Tabernacle in Exodus, he sets it up in eight stages, punctuated with a sevenfold repetition of "as the Lord commanded Moses". The eighth stage concludes with "and Moses completed the work." (Milgrom says somewhere that eight is a perfected seven, a point he connects to 50 days being a completion of 7 sevens.)
The sequence is introduced by the notice in 40:16 that "thus Moses did; according to all that the Lord commanded him, so he did," replicating exactly the notice in Gen. 6:22 that Noah followed God's instructions for the ark exactly (almost exactly, at least: YHWH substitutes for ELOHIM in Exo 40:16). The expression is used nowhere else in the OT, though a near identical expression is used of Moses, in Exo 7:6; 12:28, 50 -- the only difference being the substitution of "according to" for "as all."
Thanks for all your enlightening work. Being somewhat innumerate, the whole symbolic numbers thing in Scripture is mind blowing. I tried to unpack a small aspect of it here: https://scriptourer.substack.com/p/the-magic-number, but felt I was only scratching the surface! Look forward to a deep dive on the commentaries.
Strengthening the ties to Genesis even further:
When Moses erects the Tabernacle in Exodus, he sets it up in eight stages, punctuated with a sevenfold repetition of "as the Lord commanded Moses". The eighth stage concludes with "and Moses completed the work." (Milgrom says somewhere that eight is a perfected seven, a point he connects to 50 days being a completion of 7 sevens.)
The sequence is introduced by the notice in 40:16 that "thus Moses did; according to all that the Lord commanded him, so he did," replicating exactly the notice in Gen. 6:22 that Noah followed God's instructions for the ark exactly (almost exactly, at least: YHWH substitutes for ELOHIM in Exo 40:16). The expression is used nowhere else in the OT, though a near identical expression is used of Moses, in Exo 7:6; 12:28, 50 -- the only difference being the substitution of "according to" for "as all."
Thanks for all your enlightening work. Being somewhat innumerate, the whole symbolic numbers thing in Scripture is mind blowing. I tried to unpack a small aspect of it here: https://scriptourer.substack.com/p/the-magic-number, but felt I was only scratching the surface! Look forward to a deep dive on the commentaries.