(1) וישמעו AND THEY HEARD — There are many Midrashic explanations and our Teachers have already collected them in their appropriate places in Genesis Rabbah and in other Midrashim. I, however, am only concerned with the plain sense of Scripture פשוטו של מקרא / peshuto shel Mikra and with such Agadoth that explain the words of Scripture in a manner that fits in with them. וישמעו AND THEY HEARD — What did they hear? They heard the sound of the Holy One, blessed be He, as He walked in the garden (see Genesis Rabbah 19:12).

(2) Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts/terumah/תרומה; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart is so moved.

(3) ידבנו לבו — The word ידבנו is of the same root as נדבה (the נ in the latter being replaced by the Dagesh in the ד); it is a term denoting “good-will”, apaisement [or present = present] in old French (cf. Rashi on Genesis 33:10 and Leviticus 19:5).

(1) GOD spoke to Moses, saying: (2) Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart is so moved. (3) And these are the gifts that you shall accept from them: gold, silver, and copper;

(4) blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, goats’ hair; (5) tanned ram skins, dolphin skins, and acacia wood; (6) oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the aromatic incense; (7) lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece.

(8) And let them make Me a sanctuary/מקדש/mikdash that I may dwell among them. (9) Exactly as I show you—the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings—so shall you make it.

(1) ויתן אל משה וגו׳ AND HE GAVE UNTO MOSES etc. — There is no “earlier” or “later” (no chronological order) in the events related in the Torah: in fact the incident of the golden calf (related in ch. 32) happened a considerable time before the command regarding the work of the Tabernacle was given (ch. 25 and the following chapters). For on the seventeenth of Tammuz were the Tablets broken (when the people were worshipping the calf) and on the Day of Atonement God became reconciled with Israel (after Moses had prayed 80 days for forgivenness; so that it is very unlikely that the command for the building of the Tabernacle should have been given before that day) and on the next day, the eleventh of Tishri (cf. Rashi on Exodus 33:11, at end of comment on ושב אל המחנה), they began to bring their contributions for the Tabernacle which was set up on the first of Nisan. (From the seventeenth of Tammuz until the eleventh of Tishri are almost three months — ימים רבים) (Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 31).

(17) You shall make a cover of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. (18) Make two cherubim of gold—make them of hammered work—at the two ends of the cover. (19) Make one cherub at one end and the other cherub at the other end; of one piece with the cover shall you make the cherubim at its two ends. (20) The cherubim shall have their wings spread out above, shielding the cover with their wings. They shall confront each other, the faces of the cherubim being turned toward the cover. (21) Place the cover on top of the Ark, after depositing inside the Ark the Pact that I will give you. (22) There I will meet with you, and I will impart to you—from above the cover, from between the two cherubim that are on top of the Ark of the Pact—all that I will command you concerning the Israelite people.

(1) כרבים CHERUBIM — They had the form of a child’s face (Sukkah 5b).

(1) As for the tabernacle/משכן/Mishkan (The "Tent"), make it of ten strips of cloth; make these of fine twisted linen, of blue, purple, and crimson yarns, with a design of cherubim worked into them. (See also 26:31 regarding the Parochet/Curtain.)

(3)כרבים מעשה חשב WITH CHERUBIM, THE WORK OF AN ARTIST — Cherubim were figured on them (on the curtains) in the process of weaving them, not afterwards by embroidery which is needlework — but by weaving it on its two surfaces, one design on one side, a different design on the other; e. g., a lion on one side and an eagle on the other side, just as the silken girdles are woven which are called in old French faisee (Yoma 72b, Jerusalem Talmud Shekalim 8:4).

(24) humankind was driven out; and east of the garden of Eden were stationed thecherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life.

(40) Note well, and follow the patterns for them [elements of the Menorah/Lampstand] that are being shown you on the mountain.

(1) וראה ועשה AND SEE AND MAKE — See here, in the mountain, the pattern which I shew thee. This teaches you that Moses was puzzled about the workmanship of the Menorah until the Holy One, blessed be He, showed him the pattern of it in a candlestick of fire (Menachot 29a).

(30) Then set up the Tabernacle according to the manner of it that you were shown on the mountain. (See also Exodus 26:8 regarding the altar)

(18) Of the planks of the Tabernacle, make twenty planks on the south side: (19) making forty silver sockets under the twenty planks, two sockets under the one plank for its two tenons and two sockets under each following plank for its two tenons; (20) and for the other side wall of the Tabernacle, on the north side, twenty planks, (21) with their forty silver sockets, two sockets under the one plank and two sockets under each following plank. (22) And for the rear of the Tabernacle, to the west, make six planks; (23) and make two planks for the corners of the Tabernacle at the rear.

(1) You shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long and five cubits wide—the altar is to be square—and three cubits high. (2) Make its horns on the four corners, the horns to be of one piece with it; and overlay it with copper.

(2) וצפית אתו נחשת AND THOU SHALT OVERLAY IT WITH COPPER — to atone for sins committed with effrontery (more lit., with impudence of forehead, the Hebrew expression for effrontery being, “having a copper forehead,”) as it is said, (Isaiah 48:4) “[Because I know that thou art obstinate] and that thy forehead is copper” (cf. our English expression “brazen-faced”) (Midrash Tanchuma, Terumah 11).