Numbers 7 is the longest chapter in the Torah, listing identical offerings from twelve tribal princes across twelve days. It is famously repetitive. The Targum Jonathan rescues it by revealing what each detail supposedly symbolized.
The dedication began on the first of Nisan, when Moses finished erecting the Tabernacle. The twelve princes brought six covered wagons and twelve oxen. Moses initially refused to accept them, but God told him to distribute them to the Levites. Gershon received two wagons and four oxen. Merari received four wagons and eight oxen. Kohath received nothing, because their sacred cargo had to be carried on human shoulders.
Nachshon son of Amminadab, prince of Judah, brought his offering first. But the Targum's real treasure comes in the summary at the end. Each silver bowl weighed 130 shekels—"answering to the years of Jochebed when she bore Moses." Each vase weighed 70 shekels—"answering to the seventy elders of the great Sanhedrin (the supreme rabbinic court)." The twelve golden pans corresponded to the twelve signs of the zodiac. Each pan weighed ten shekels—"answering to the Ten Words" (the Ten Commandments). The total gold of 120 shekels matched "the years lived by Moses the prophet."
The twelve rams meant "the twelve princes of Ishmael would perish." The twelve lambs meant "the twelve princes of Persia would perish." The sixty rams of the peace offerings corresponded to "the sixty years which Isaac had lived when he begat Jacob." The sixty goats matched "the sixty letters in the benediction of the priests."
The chapter ends with Moses entering the Tabernacle and hearing "the voice of the Spirit who spoke with him descending from the heaven of heavens upon the Mercy Seat between the two Cherubim." The voice came not from the Ark but from above it, descending through the cosmos to reach the space between the golden wings.