Shemot 40:1-33 (Pekudei) - The anointing of the mishkan, the ohel moed and the priests

Shemot 40:1-15 records G-d’s instructions to Moshe for setting up the mishkan, and Shemot 40:16-33 records that Moshe set up the mishkan. One curiosity of 40:16-33 is that the verses only partially record Moshe’s fulfillment of G-d’s instructions from 40:1-15.

40:2 records that Moshe was to construct the mishkan, and 40:17-19 record the fulfillment of 40:2 that Moshe put up the boards for the walls and the coverings for the ceiling. 40:3 then records that Moshe was to put the aron and the parokhet (the screen to the room with the aron) in the mishkan, and 40:20,21 record that Moshe fulfilled this instruction from G-d. 40:4 records that Moshe was to put the table and the menorah into the mishkan, and 40:22-25 records that Moshe fulfilled these instructions. 40:5 records that Moshe was then to put the incense altar into the mishkan and put up the screen separating the mishkan proper from the courtyard. 40:26-28 records that Moshe fulfilled this command. 40:6 records that Moshe was then to put up the outer altar outside the mishkan proper and 40:29 records that Moshe fulfilled this command. 40:7 records that Moshe was to place the laver between the outer altar and the mishkan proper and fill the laver with water. 40:30-32 record that Moshe fulfilled these instructions. 40:8 records that Moshe was to put up the walls around the courtyard, and 40:33 records that Moshe fulfilled this instruction. 40:9 then records that Moshe was to anoint the mishkan with oil. By now, following the pattern of 40:1-8 and 40:17-33, we would expect that 40:34 would record that Moshe fulfilled this instruction to anoint the mishkan to maintain the order of the chapter. However, there is no mention of Moshe anointing the mishkan. Instead, 40:34 records that the cloud of G-d and the glory of G-d filled the mishkan.

What happened to the anointing of the mishkan? The section 40:17-33 followed an exact pattern that Moshe followed G-d’s instructions from the beginning of chapter 40. Yet, 40:9 records that Moshe was instructed to anoint the mishkan, and here the pattern breaks down since there is no mention of Moshe anointing the mishkan in chapter 40. We know that Moshe must have fulfilled this action since 40:16 records that Moshe did everything that he was instructed by G-d. When did Moshe anoint the mishkan? Three are two possibilities. Vayikra 8:10 and Bemidbar 7:1 both record that Moshe anointed the mishkan. We will review both possibilities, starting with Vayikra 8:10.

Vayikra 8 records the initiation of the priests, and as part of that process, Vayikra 8:10 records that Moshe anointed the mishkan. However, this anointing cannot be the fulfillment of G-d’s instruction in Shemot 40:9 since the order of events in Vayikra 8 do not correspond with the order of Shemot 40. Vayikra 8:7-9 records that Moshe dressed Aharon in the special clothing of the High Priest before he anointed the mishkan while Shemot 40:9 records that the mishkan was to be anointed before Moshe dressed Aharon, Shemot 40:13. As we noticed above, Moshe when fulfilling G-d’s instruction of Shemot 40 followed them exactly in the order that they were commanded.

Ramban (on Vayikra 8:10) explains that in Shemot 40, the Torah wanted to record together all the actions with regard to Aharon and his sons, and hence the instructions to dress Aharon in his priestly clothing were recorded after the instruction to anoint the mishkan. He is insinuating that the instructions in Shemot 40 are not to be understood as indicating a specific order. Yet, this is contradicted by the correspondence noted above that Moshe followed the instructions of Shemot 40 in their exact order.

Or Hachayyim (on Vayikra 8:10) argues that in Vayikra 8, Moshe was following the order of 8:2, which records the instructions to “take Aharon, his sons, their clothing and the oil.” Since the oil was mentioned last, Or Hachayyim suggests that Moshe learned that first he was to dress Aharon and then to anoint the mishkan. Yet, still this dressing of Aharon before the anointing of the mishkan contradicts the order of Shemot 40. Or Hachayyim answers that the order of Shemot 40 only meant to anoint the mishkan before anointing Aharon, but he claims, following the Ramban, that the instructions to dress Aharon in Shemot 40 were recorded after the instructions to anoint the mishkan in order to combine the dressing of Aharon with his anointing. Yet, again this contradicts the order of Shemot 40. Also, if in Vayikra 8 the Torah could record the dressing of Aharon separate from the anointing, then Shemot 40 could also have done so. Or Hachayyim seems correct that in Vayikra 8, Moshe was following the order of Vayikra 8:2, but this means that the anointing recorded in Vayikra 8 was not the anointing that was instructed in Shemot 40. Accordingly, since Vayikra 8:10 cannot be the fulfillment of the instructions of Shemot 40:9, it must be that the instructions were fulfilled in Bemidbar 7:1.

Bemidbar 7:1 records that, “On the day when Moshe finished setting up the mishkan, he anointed it and sanctified it, and all of its vessels, and the altar and all of its vessels he also anointed and sanctified.” Not only must this be the fulfillment of the instructions of Shemot 40:9 since Vayikra 8:10 was ruled out as discussed above, but also the words “on the day when Moshe finished the mishkan” refer to the events of Shemot 40. Bemidbar 7:1 is a continuation of Shemot 40:33. Yet, there remain several problems.

One, Shemot 40:11 records that Moshe was to anoint the laver and its basin, but this anointing is not mentioned in Bemidbar 7. This might tempt one to argue that Vayikra 8:11 is the fulfillment of Shemot 40:11. Yet, not only would this contradict the order of Shemot 40 as discussed above, but also one could not wash from the laver until it was anointed and Vayikra 8:6 records that Aharon washed before the anointing of Vayikra 8:11. Thus the laver had to be anointed before the events of Vayikra 8, and it is most likely that the anointing of the laver occurred after the anointing recorded in Bemidbar 7:1 but was not recorded in the Torah. My guess is that it was not specified in Bemidbar 7:1 since the main focus of the chapter is on the sacrifices of the tribal leaders, which were not directly related to the anointing of the laver. (In fact, the laver was omitted on another occasion as Shemot 38:30,31 records the items of the mishkan that were from bronze, and the laver was not mentioned, see N. Leibowitz, 1976a, pp. 689-695.)

A second problem with the idea that Bemidbar 7:1 is the continuation of Shemot 40:33, is how does the anointing in Bemidbar 7:1 relate to the anointing recorded in Vayikra 8? The most popular opinion of the commentators (see Rashi on Vayikra 9:1 and Bemidbar 7:1) is that Vayikra 8, the initiation of the priests, occurred a week before the events of Shemot 40. According to this approach, Vayikra 8 records a completely separate process of anointing from the anointing of Shemot 40 and Bemidbar 7:1. Yet, as Shemot 40:2 records the completion of the mishkan, how could the priests have been initiated before there was a mishkan? The standard answer (Bemidbar Rabbah 12:15) is that during the seven days of the initiation of the priests Moshe put the mishkan up and took it down daily (even twice or three times a day), and then Shemot 40 refers to the period when Moshe constructed the mishkan without it having to be dismantled immediately afterwards. Yet, why would Moshe do this since this was an enormous amount of work? Furthermore, from Vayikra 8:33-36 it seems that the mishkan existed continuously during the seven-day initiation process of the priests. Ramban (on Shemot 40:2) attempts to answer these questions, but as maintained by Rabbi Akiva and Ibn Ezra (see long comments on Shemot 40:2), it cannot be that Vayikra 8 occurred before Shemot 40.

We now have a problem. Bemidbar 7:10 records that on the day of the anointing of the mishkan, the chiefs of the tribes brought their sacrifices for the mishkan and this went on for 12 days. Yet, if Bemidbar 7:1 is a continuation of Shemot 40, and if the initiation of the priests as recorded in Vayikra 8 was after Shemot 40, then how does the initiation of the priests relate to the sacrifices brought by the tribal leaders?

There are three possible ways to mesh the chronology of the initiation of the priests with the sacrifices of the tribal leaders. One possibility is that they both started on the day when Moshe finished putting up the mishkan, the first day of Nisan. This seems unlikely since not only would it have been a very, very busy day (see Abravanel on Bemidbar 7) but also why would Moshe have anointed the mishkan twice on one day? Furthermore, the seven-day initiation rite of the priests and the events of the eighth day (Vayikra 9) would then have been contemporaneous with the 12 days when the tribal leaders were bringing their sacrifices, and this seems difficult.

A second possibility is R. Akiva and Ibn Ezra's (long comments on 40:2) approach, that the priests were initiated after the mishkan was anointed and then after this initiation process, the tribal leaders brought their sacrifices. With this idea, the priests began their initiation rite on the first day of Nisan, and the tribal leaders began to bring their sacrifices on the eighth day of Nisan. This also seems unlikely since Bemidbar 7:10 records that the tribal leaders brought their sacrifices immediately after Moshe anointed the mishkan. Also, again there would be the problem that Moshe would have anointed the mishkan twice on the same day. (Ibn Ezra understands Bemidbar 7:1 as referring to the anointing of Vayikra 8:10 and not recording a new anointing, but again this is problematic since Vayikra 8 does not follow the order of Shemot 40.)

We are left with the possibility that the initiation process of the priests happened after the tribal leaders brought their gifts. According to this possibility, on the 1st day of 1st month (Nisan) of the 2nd year in the desert, the mishkan was completed, Shemot 40:17. On that day, Moshe anointed the mishkan as recorded in Bemidbar 7:1, and the tribal leaders began to bring their sacrifices. Their sacrifices continued until the 12th day of the month.  At that point the priests could have started their initiation process, but as the 14th of the month was the day the korban pesach (Bemidbar 9:3) was offered presumably the initiation process would have been afterwards. (Note that according to this chronology, the korban pesach in the desert was brought without the help of the priests, as was true for the korban pesach in Egypt.) 

Ibn Ezra (on Shemot 40:2) argues that the Jewish people did not celebrate the holiday of Matzot in the desert, which means the priests could have started their initiation process on the 15th of the month. If Ibn Ezra is incorrect then the holiday of Matzot ended on the 21st of the month, and then the initiation process would have started on the 22nd of the month. In either case, the initiation of the priests would have ended before the 2nd month, which is when Moshe was commanded to count the people, Bemidbar 1:1,2.

This chronology means that the mishkan would have existed for a short time when there were no priests. This anomaly explains why the mishkan had to be anointed twice. Once, in Bemidbar 7:1, it was anointed for the regular population on the first day of Nisan, and then Vayikra 8:10 records that it was anointed a second time for the priests on either the 15th or the 22nd of Nisan.

In addition, because it was the priestly clothing that made Aharon a priest, he was dressed before the anointing recorded in Vayikra 8:10, which was for his family. This dressing and anointing of the priests during their initiation process in Vayikra 8 was the fulfillment of the instructions of Shemot 40:12-15, but this occurred after the events recorded in Bemidbar 7:1 which records the fulfillment of Shemot 40:9,10.