Exodus 35:30-36:38--Construction of the Tabernacle

Construction of the Tabernacle​
35:30 Then Moses said to the people of Israel, “See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; 31 and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, 32 to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, 33 in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft. 34 And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab the son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan. 35 He has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, or by a weaver—by any sort of workman or skilled designer.

36 “Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whom the Lord has put skill and intelligence to know how to do any work in the construction of the sanctuary shall work in accordance with all that the Lord has commanded.”

2 And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work. 3 And they received from Moses all the contribution that the people of Israel had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill offerings every morning, 4 so that all the craftsmen who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task that he was doing, 5 and said to Moses, “The people bring much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do.” 6 So Moses gave command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp, “Let no man or woman do anything more for the contribution for the sanctuary.” So the people were restrained from bringing, 7 for the material they had was sufficient to do all the work, and more.

8 And all the craftsmen among the workmen made the tabernacle with ten curtains. They were made of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns, with cherubim skillfully worked. 9 The length of each curtain was twenty-eight cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits. All the curtains were the same size.

10 He coupled five curtains to one another, and the other five curtains he coupled to one another. 11 He made loops of blue on the edge of the outermost curtain of the first set. Likewise he made them on the edge of the outermost curtain of the second set. 12 He made fifty loops on the one curtain, and he made fifty loops on the edge of the curtain that was in the second set. The loops were opposite one another. 13 And he made fifty clasps of gold, and coupled the curtains one to the other with clasps. So the tabernacle was a single whole.

14 He also made curtains of goats' hair for a tent over the tabernacle. He made eleven curtains. 15 The length of each curtain was thirty cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits. The eleven curtains were the same size. 16 He coupled five curtains by themselves, and six curtains by themselves. 17 And he made fifty loops on the edge of the outermost curtain of the one set, and fifty loops on the edge of the other connecting curtain. 18 And he made fifty clasps of bronze to couple the tent together that it might be a single whole. 19 And he made for the tent a covering of tanned rams' skins and goatskins.

20 Then he made the upright frames for the tabernacle of acacia wood. 21 Ten cubits was the length of a frame, and a cubit and a half the breadth of each frame. 22 Each frame had two tenons for fitting together. He did this for all the frames of the tabernacle. 23 The frames for the tabernacle he made thus: twenty frames for the south side. 24 And he made forty bases of silver under the twenty frames, two bases under one frame for its two tenons, and two bases under the next frame for its two tenons. 25 For the second side of the tabernacle, on the north side, he made twenty frames 26 and their forty bases of silver, two bases under one frame and two bases under the next frame. 27 For the rear of the tabernacle westward he made six frames. 28 He made two frames for corners of the tabernacle in the rear. 29 And they were separate beneath but joined at the top, at the first ring. He made two of them this way for the two corners. 30 There were eight frames with their bases of silver: sixteen bases, under every frame two bases.

31 He made bars of acacia wood, five for the frames of the one side of the tabernacle, 32 and five bars for the frames of the other side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the frames of the tabernacle at the rear westward. 33 And he made the middle bar to run from end to end halfway up the frames. 34 And he overlaid the frames with gold, and made their rings of gold for holders for the bars, and overlaid the bars with gold.

35 He made the veil of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen; with cherubim skillfully worked into it he made it. 36 And for it he made four pillars of acacia and overlaid them with gold. Their hooks were of gold, and he cast for them four bases of silver. 37 He also made a screen for the entrance of the tent, of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, embroidered with needlework, 38 and its five pillars with their hooks. He overlaid their capitals, and their fillets were of gold, but their five bases were of bronze.

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Lot's of text, but probably not a lot of commentary today.  In short, you could say this passage (and a few others to follow it) could be summed up by saying, "And they built everything for the Tabernacle exactly as the LORD had instructed."  But, there are a few additional points that I want to point out.

First is the fact that we see the Holy Spirit is active and gifting people with a supernatural gifting to accomplish this task, and He's not just working with one person at a time, and it's not only the gift of prophesy or tongues, but in this case the gifts associated with being an artisan or craftsman--things we don't normally think of in the realm of "spiritual gifts" and usually try to put in the classification of "talents" that are more "natural" giftings or "aptitudes" or maybe even learned trades that require you to go to school or receive some kind of training learn how to do, but these men seemed to just know exactly how to do everything and did it exactly right the way that God had instructed and we see no indication that they didn't get it right the first time.  In fact the word "inspired" is used here that we normally associate with the inspiration of Scripture as someone wrote as the Holy Spirit moved them though they worked in concert, but the Holy Spirit is given credit as the main author--I think the same thing is true here that the Holy Spirit is about the work right now of making Tabernacles of God through us and preparing us (the people of God--all who are "in Christ") to be a part of the eternal Tabernacle that will be the New Jerusalem.

​I mentioned yesterday, but the craftsmen and artisans worked every day on whatever the people had provided by way of freewill offerings, but it got to the point where they had to tell Moses that the people were bringing too much and they needed them to stop because they had more materials than they needed for the work.  Isn't that just like God to provide above and beyond our needs so that can give Him all the glory, but we don't really start to realize just how much He's given us until we start to lay it all down at His feet and realize that there is more than enough for His service.  That is not to say that God is required to bless you physically or monetarily, but there also seemed to be an abundance of workmen to help the two project managers as they did not seem to come to Moses saying, "We need more help" or "The job is too large for us."  The people who were gifted were asked to also make freewill offerings of themselves--of their talent and their time--to help build the Tabernacle as well.  The people actually had to be restrained from bringing their freewill offerings--Oh that the Church today would have that kind of issue where the churches would say "It is enough, we have more than we know what to do with in helping to pay for gospel to go forth and in taking care of the widows and orphans and prisoners and homeless and all the others that God has put into our care."  Could you even imagine that happening today where a message on sacrificial giving and stewardship wouldn't feel like a "guilt trip," but instead would feel like a "thank you" for being so obedient to the call of God?  We see this in some places in Scripture like where the congregation in Macedonia saved up freewill offerings, though they were poor and destitute themselves, to help the church in Jerusalem because they saw that their brothers and sisters in Christ were in need and God laid it on their hearts to give out of their poverty and to trust Him for their daily bread and provision.  Paul encourages others to be cheerful givers like them and lets everyone know of this good that they had done in secret, not hoping to gain any glory for themselves, but for the glory of God alone.

That's pretty much it.  The rest of the section, as mentioned before, speaks about them making everything for the actual tent coverings and the clasps and rings and frame for it.  The next passages coming up have to do with making the Courtyard, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place and everything that went inside of them just as it had been commanded.  There will then be a slight break at the end of chapter 38 to actually take inventory of all the contributions that had been made by the people to building the Tabernacle (just so that we get some kind of idea how much God had provided and how much of an undertaking this was and how it would have been impossible without His provision and gifting).

The text turns last of all to the garments for the priests, both those that they would wear every day and the garments for the High Priest that he would wear only on the day of atonement.  There is then a summary of all the work that was done by all who helped and how they made everything according to what the LORD had commanded.

Finally, the book of Exodus will end with the erection of the Tabernacle and the glory of the LORD filling the Tabernacle so that the people knew to stay as long as the pillar of cloud stayed over the Tabernacle, but they would get up and move when the pillar of cloud got up and moved from the Tabernacle to lead them somewhere new.

There is much more to the books of the Law (the Torah) and we'll come back to them as I'm guessing it would be a bit overwhelming to some to immediately jump into the book of Leviticus after Exodus, so I'll tackle the book of Job next which is probably our oldest book in the Bible since Job predates Moses and Moses seems to be indicated to be the author of the Torah (with the exception of the last few chapters of Deuteronomy which we believe were written by Joshua, as they describe the death of Moses and events after Moses died.)  Most of what people know about the book of Job is simply in the first few verses of Job and they may know some of the last few verses of Job but they miss all the "good stuff" (and "bad stuff") that we need to talk about that's between those two pieces of bread (using a sandwich as a metaphor here).  The book of Job can teach us a lot--not only about pain and suffering, but how the world doesn't operate by the principles that we imagine sometimes, it teaches us about who we are in the sight of God, and it shows us a lot of errant philosophies and worldviews that we still hare dealing with today that we need to watch out for--especially today.  So, hand in there with me as we finish up the book of Exodus and then we'll come back to the books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy after a short time in the book of Job.