Why did Moses bless the people at the end of Exodus?
Moses blessed Israel because he had just inspected the finished tabernacle and found it built exactly as commanded — and in doing so he stepped into the same role God takes at the end of creation.
Moses blessed the people because he had just personally inspected the completed tabernacle, found every piece built exactly as the LORD had commanded, and responded the way a mediator does when the work entrusted to him comes back finished and whole.
The moment comes at the very close of the garment-and-construction report:
And Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it; as the LORD had commanded, so had they done it. And Moses blessed them. — Exodus 39:43 (MT)
Notice the sequence: seeing, then verdict, then blessing. Moses "saw" (רָאָה, ra'ah, H7200) all the work — inspecting it as a whole, not just the garments (Exodus 39:1–31) but the entire construction reported across Exodus 36–39. "Behold" (הִנֵּה, hinneh, H2009) marks his verdict: it matched, down to the letter, what had been commanded. And only then does he bless them — the Hebrew verb בָּרַךְ, barak (H1288), in the exact same grammatical form used just one chapter of Scripture earlier for God's own blessing at the close of creation: "and God blessed" (Genesis 2:3) becomes "and Moses blessed them" (Exodus 39:43), the identical shape, changing only the subject.
This wasn't a routine nicety. All ten of the chapter's earlier stamps of "as the LORD commanded Moses" (Exodus 39:1, 5, 7, 21, 26, 29, 31, 32, 42) had been building toward exactly this moment — a chapter obsessed with proving that the people did precisely what they were told, culminating in the one man authorized to confirm it. Moses is the mediator through whom the command first came down from the mountain; now he is the one who sees the command fulfilled and pronounces over the finished work. The blessing is the visible sign that the obedience was real, verified, and complete — not a formality but the appropriate response to a covenant people who had, for once, gotten everything right.
The wider significance is that this blessing places Moses in the very position Genesis 1:31–2:3 gives to God: finishing, seeing, beholding, and blessing a completed work. That is not something the text states outright — it is enacted in the grammar rather than announced — but a cross-reference tradition going back to 1836 already links these two passages for exactly this reason. The full study traces how this scene presents the tabernacle as a small, ordered world brought to completion, echoing the shape of creation itself.
How is the tabernacle like a new creation?
When the finished tabernacle is brought to Moses, he finishes, sees, beholds, and blesses it — the same rare cluster of words used when God finished creation and called it very good.
What does 'Holy to the LORD' on the golden plate mean?
The golden plate on the high priest's turban was engraved with the words 'Holy to the LORD' — a signet-style inscription marking Aaron, and through him the whole people he represented, as set apart for God.
What does 'It is finished' have to do with the Old Testament?
Jesus's cry from the cross picks up a word-family that the Old Testament already uses for God finishing creation and Moses finishing the tabernacle — the same God bringing his work to its appointed end.
Why does Exodus keep repeating 'as the LORD commanded Moses'?
Exodus 39 stamps the phrase ten times because the chapter's whole point is that God's people built the tabernacle exactly as they were told — nothing added, nothing left out.