<p>7:44 <i>Our fathers had t<em>he tabernacle of the testimony i</em></i><i>n the wilderness, even as He who spoke to Moses</i>- The contrast is with the tabernacle of Moloch which they also carried with them. The &quot;testimony&quot; implies an evidence, a witness. There was no such witness in the false tabernacle. This is the word commonly used for the testimony or witness of the early preachers (Acts 4:33 and often in Paul's letters). This testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus was ignored by the Jews of Stephen's day just as Israel in the wilderness preferred the witness of Moloch's tabernacle which was in fact not a witness at all, for it was a silent assembly of materials and nothing more. The hint was that this was all the Jerusalem temple now amounted to, for the Lord had left that house desolate; the glory had departed from it. To draw a parallel between the Jerusalem temple and the tabernacle of Moloch was a radical thing to do. No wonder Saul and his colleagues were cut to the heart and beside themselves with anger.</p><p><em>Appointed</em>- The tabernacle of Moloch was not &quot;appointed&quot; by God. Saul was paying attention to every word; for the Lord then appeared to him and &quot;appointed&quot; <em>him</em> to do the work of <em>His </em>tabernacle (Acts 22:10 s.w.). And by doing so the Lord was inviting Paul and all of us to see Moses not as an icon to be worshipped from a respectful distance, but as a realistic pattern for our own path.</p><p><em>T</em><i>hat he should make it according to the figure that he had seen</i>- See on :43 <em>Figures which you made</em>.</p>