Exodus25chapter 25

The chapter opens the pattern of the tabernacle, and Rashi reads the offering as a gift made for God himself. The words about taking an offering for me he reads as taking it "to the glory of My Name" (Rashi on Exodus 25:2:1, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Terumah 1). He reads the command to make a sanctuary the same way (Rashi on Exodus 25:8:1). He divides the materials by how they were given. Everything came as a voluntary gift, each man giving as his heart prompted him, with silver alone brought by all in equal measure, a half shekel each (Rashi on Exodus 25:3:1). The blue is wool dyed with the blood of the chilazon, a shellfish, and the colour is greenish blue (Rashi on Exodus 25:4:1, citing Menachot 44a). On the ark he carries a tradition about how the overlaying was done. Bezalel made three arks, two of gold and one of wood. He set the wooden one inside the larger gold one, and the smaller gold one inside the wood (Rashi on Exodus 25:11:1, citing Yoma 72b and Jerusalem Talmud Shekalim 6:1). The cherubim "had the form of a child's face" (Rashi on Exodus 25:18:1, citing Sukkah 5b). Their wings are spread high enough to leave ten handbreadths of hollow space above the cover (Rashi on Exodus 25:20:1). The golden border of the table he reads as a sign of kingship, since the table stands for wealth and greatness (Rashi on Exodus 25:24:1, citing Yoma 72b). On the repeated command to put the testimony in the ark he says plainly, "I do not know why this is repeated". He then offers an answer about the order of the work (Rashi on Exodus 25:21:1). Rashi is quoted from the Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition of 1929 to 1934, public domain. Ibn Ezra comments at Exodus 25:1:1 under a licence that keeps his text off this page. Malbim comments at Exodus 25:14:1 with no English version in the corpus.