Exodus 37 Footnotes

37:1-9 Did the Israelites construct the ark after Moses returned with the second set of stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments or before this (see Dt 10:3-5)? Moses received the command to build the ark and the directions for its construction (Ex 25:9-22) before his second journey up Mount Sinai. Dt 10 suggests that Moses built the ark, went up and down the mountain, and then put the Ten Commandments in the ark. This sequence of events would require that the events of Ex 35–37 take place before Ex 34:29. But, while these passages may be out of chronological order, it is not necessary to conclude that they are.

A harmonization of the narrative in Ex 25–37 and Dt 10 is possible if one understands that the process of building the ark began when Moses first received the command to make it. Even though the ark was not completed until later, Moses could reasonably speak of its existence earlier because it was a work in progress. Though the Ten Commandments were not placed in the ark immediately after Moses came down the mountain, they were put in it as soon as the ark was completed.