Week 4 Exodus 13-32
Exodus 25-31 is a seven-chapter block, a topical unit: Instructions for Building the Tabernacle. I decide to read it in one sitting. I’ve travelled this road before and have a sense of what to expect – seven pretty lonely and demanding chapters.
I’m sitting in my room when I start but by the middle of chapter 26 I go into the kitchen and stand at the island. I catch my mind drifting in mid-28 and refocus, re-converge. Chapter 29 starts at the bottom of 123 and when I turn the page I see two columns of unbroken text – the longest chapter of the set. Before long I quit using my plastic ruler and lean on my elbows scanning the columns, lots of content passing through the sieve in my head. I finish in about thirty-three minutes (a long reading day); I’ve covered some ground.
Low sun is flooding the kitchen now; I turn off the lights, check the weather station – it’s cold. I look back at pencil marks in the margins of my bible – 18 small checks and 2 question marks that weren’t there 33 minutes ago. Twenty things that got my attention. No matter where I read there’s almost never nothing.
Note: tomorrow I’ll jump ahead to Exodus 35-40.