The Israelites have had quite a time lately. In the span of a few months (or years), they’ve packed up their entire life and fled from the only nation that their people have called home for the last four hundred years. Alongside that, they’ve seen devastating miracles that brought an entire nation to their knees.
In the midst of this radical change of life for them, they also find themselves under new ownership. No longer are they slaves to the Egyptians, but an autonomous nation that answers only to God. Everything about their life has changed virtually overnight.
God takes great pains to reiterate this point to them. At the beginning of the Ten Commandments, God tells them that He is the Lord their God. He’s the one that brought them out of slavery and out of Egypt; in response, they are to have no other gods. It’s an exclusive relationship of the highest order.
God reiterates this idea at the end of the priestly atonement section in Exodus 29. He reminds them that not only is He their God, but that he is now going to “dwell among them”—presumably in the Tabernacle.
But this relationship isn’t just relegated to formal worship. For God to “dwell among them,” He needs to be more present on an everyday basis. Sure, they could see Him in the pillars of cloud and fire, but what the Israelites really needed to understand was God’s abiding presence.
This reality can have one of two different effects. Either the presence of God can make you very paranoid and skittish, unsure of every little misstep, or it can bring you a lot of comfort.
Christians should dwell on the latter. The presence of God can be a terrifying thought, but think about the ramifications of this. Not only does God know what you’re going through, but He also knows how and why you’re going through it. A God with such an intimate understanding of your everyday life could be your greatest ally.
In the context of Exodus 29 though, the point is that this consecration of the priests is further proof that God is their God. The service is not man-made but God-ordained, and the subsequent evidence will show them who they serve.
Contrary to Egypt, it won’t be magicians dressed as priests, or rulers with a god-complex, but the physical, unmistakable manifestation of the Divine. That’s the God they serve. That’s the God that delivered them out of Egypt.
And that’s who will be dwelling among them from this day forward.
