EXODUS 31 COMME�TARYEDITED BY GLE�� PEASE

Bezalel and Oholiab

1 Then the Lord said to Moses,

BAR�ES, " This solemn call of Bezaleel and Aholiab is full of instruction. Their work was to be only that of handicraftsmen. Still it was Yahweh Himself who called them by name to their tasks, and the powers which they were now called upon to exercise in their respective crafts, were declared to have been given them by the Holy Spirit. Thus is every effort of skill, every sort of well-ordered labor, when directed to a right end, brought into the very highest sphere of association.

There appears to be sufficient reason for identifying Hur, the grandfather of Bezaleel, with the Hur who assisted Aaron in supporting the hands of Moses during the battle with Amalek at Rephidim Exo_17:10, and who was associated with Aaron in the charge of the people while Moses was on the mountain Exo_24:14. Josephus says that he was the husband of Miriam. It is thus probable that Bezaleel was related to Moses. He was the chief artificer in metal, stone, and wood; he had also to perform the apothecary’s work in the composition of the anointing oil and the incense Exo_37:29. He had precedence of all the artificers, but Aholiab appears to have had the entire charge of the textile work Exo_35:35; Exo_38:23.

GILL, "And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... After the Lord had given Moses instructions about building a tabernacle, the model of which he had shown him, and what should be the furniture of it, who should minister in it, and what clothes they should wear, he acquaints him that he had provided artificers for this service; which would prevent doubts and objections that might rise up in the mind of Moses, how and by whom all this should be done; since the children of Israel had not been brought up, nor used to any curious work in Egypt, out of which they were but just come:

HE�RY, "A great deal of fine work God had ordered to be done about the tabernacle; the materials the people were to provide, but who must put them into form? Moses himself was learned in all the learning of the Egyptians, nay, he was well acquainted with the words of God, and the visions of the Almighty; but he knew not how to engrave or embroider. We may suppose that there were some very ingenious men among the Israelites; but, having lived all their days in bondage in Egypt, we cannot think they were any of them instructed in these curious arts. They knew how to make brick and work in clay, but to work in gold and in cutting diamonds was what they had never been brought

up to. How should the work be done with the neatness and exactness that were required when they had no goldsmiths or jewellers but what must be made out of masons and bricklayers? We may suppose that there were a sufficient number who would gladly be employed, and would do their best; but it would be hard to find out a proper person to preside in this work. Who was sufficient for these things? But God takes care of this matter also.

K&D 1-5, "The Builders (cf. Ex 35:30-36:1). - After having given directions for the construction of the sanctuary, and all the things required for the worship, Jehovah pointed out the builders, whom He had called to carry out the work, and had filled with His Spirit for that purpose. To “call by name” is to choose or appoint by name for a particular work (cf. Isa_45:3-4). Bezaleel was a grandson of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, who is mentioned in Exo_17:10; Exo_24:14, and was called to be the master-builder, to superintend the whole of the building and carry out the artistic work; consequently he is not only invariably mentioned first (Exo_35:30; Exo_36:1-2), but in the accounts of the execution of the separate portions he is mentioned alone (Exo_37:1; Exo_38:22). Filling with the Spirit of God signifies the communication of an extraordinary and supernatural endowment and qualification, “in wisdom,” etc., i.e., consisting of wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and every kind of workmanship, that is to say, for the performance of every kind of work. This did not preclude either natural capacity or acquired skill, but rather presupposed them; for in Exo_31:6 it is expressly stated in relation to his assistants, that God had put wisdom into all that were wise-hearted (see at Exo_28:3). Being thus endowed with a supernaturally exalted gift, Bezaleel was qualified “to think out inventions,” i.e., ideas or artistic designs. Although everything had been minutely described by Jehovah, designs and plans were still needed in carrying out the work, so that the result should correspond to the divine instructions.

BE�SO�, "Exodus 31:1-2. See, I have called Bezaleel — The grandson of Hur, probably that Hur who had helped to hold up Moses’s hands, chap. 17., and was at this time in commission with Aaron for the government of the people in the absence of Moses. Aholiab, of the tribe of Dan, is appointed next to Bezaleel, and partner with him. Hiram, who was the head workman in the building of Solomon’s temple, was also of the tribe of Dan, 2 Chronicles 2:14.

COFFMA�, "Verse 1The two things stressed in Exodus 31 are:

(1) God's appointment of the men who would have charge of the construction of the tabernacle and all of its furniture (Exodus 31:1-11); and

(2) a reiteration of the sabbath commandment, making it a "sign" of God's covenant with Israel, including also the assignment of the death penalty for violators (Exodus 31:12-17).

The final Exodus 31:18 announces the return from Mount Sinai of Moses with the tables of the Law.

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise skillful works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood, to work in all manner of workmanship."

Bezalel, it appears, was thus named as the general foreman of the entire construction project. The passage does not mean that Bezalel would actually do all of the work mentioned, by himself alone; nevertheless, he was inspired with God's Spirit with the perfect knowledge of how every portion of the whole was to be done, a knowledge which he would have been able to impart to helpers and assistants who might have been needed.

"I have called by name Bezalel ..." On occasion, when God especially needed a man for important assignments, he called him by name. Thus, on the Damascus road, he called, "Saul, Saul" (Acts 22:7). When Samuel was a child, God called "Samuel" three tinges (1 Samuel 3 and God even called "Cyrus," the ruler of Medo-Persia, generations before he was born (See Isaiah 45:1-7). God's thus calling certain persons "by name" seems to have been rare and reserved for those who gave extraordinary service in fulfilling the plans and purpose of Almighty God.

"The son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah ..." The reason for the ancestors being named seems to have been twofold. It stressed that Bezalel came of a faithful family, the Hur mentioned here having already been mentioned by Moses in Exodus 17:10, and in Exodus 24:20, occasions when Hur held up the hands of Moses and was left, along with Aaron, in charge of the people during Moses' absence. We find no agreement with scholars who reject the identification of this Hur in the ancestry of Bezalel with the man of the same name already mentioned twice by Moses in this same narrative. Dumaelow's claim that there is no evidence of this identity "beyond the similarity of names"[1] is incorrect, because when any historian mentions the same name three times in succession, it is mandatory to assume that the same person is meant each time. As Keil accurately discerned it:

"Bezalel was a grandson of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, who is mentioned in Exodus 17:10; Exodus 24:14, and was called to be the master-builder, to superintend the whole of the building and carry out the artistic work; consequently, he is not only invariably mentioned first (Exodus 35:30; Exodus 36:1-2), but in the accounts of the execution of the separate portions, he is mentioned alone (Exodus 32:1; Exodus 38:22)."[2]A second reason for this inclusion of Bezalel's ancestry is seen in the identification of him with the tribe of Judah, the tribe through whom came Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world. In these two particulars: that he came of the tribe of Judah, and that he built the tabernacle, Bezalel stands as a type of the Christ who also came of Judah, and built the Church of which that ancient tabernacle itself was a type. "The name Bezalel means in the shadow of God."[3]

One other word about the ancestry of Bezalel. He is traced all the way back to Judah's son Pharez (of Tamar) in 1 Chronicles 4:1-4. On the basis of other men named Hur in the times of Ezra and �ehemiah (Ezra 20:24; �ehemiah 3:9), �oth wrote, "This could suggest a post-exilic origin of the tradition."[4] There are no less than five Hur's in the Houston telephone directory now! And if �oth had known about that, he might have concluded that Exodus was written recently. One conclusion is just as reasonable as the other. Furthermore, we are not dealing in Exodus with "a tradition," but with divine history.

"I have filled him with the Spirit of God ..." This is exceedingly important in showing that human skills, dexterity, artistry, etc. are gifts of God, no less than that of prophecy. Also, Moses did not appoint this chief superintendent of the works of the tabernacle; God appointed him. It is evident also that Bezalel possessed personal abilities of great dimensions even before he received God's Spirit. This passage reminds us of Acts 6:3-6, where men full of wisdom and of the Holy Spirit were appointed to administer the charities of the Jerusalem church. �ote again that God never appointed any man to a task without endowing him fully to enable the execution of it.

CO�STABLE, Verses 1-119. The builders of the tabernacle31:1-11

Chapter31summarizes what God required for His people to approach Him. God appointed the men who would be responsible for interpreting Moses" instructions about the tabernacle and constructing it. He filled them with His Spirit so they would make choices consistent with His will ( Exodus 31:3).

Bezalel ("In the shadow of God") was evidently Miriam"s grandson. [�ote: Josephus, 3:6:1.] Oholiab ("The Father is my tent") was his assistant. God endowed both men with natural ability as well as with the Holy Spirit to do the work He had appointed for them (cf. Acts 6:3).

"Though they were skilled, the narrative emphasizes clearly that they were to do the work of building the tabernacle by means of the skills that the Spirit of God would give them. There is an important parallel here with God"s work of Creation in Genesis 1. Just as God did his work of Creation by means of his Spirit ( Genesis 1:2 to Genesis 2:3), so also Israel was to do their work of building the tabernacle by God"s Spirit.

"The parallels between God"s work in Creation and Israel"s work on the tabernacle are part of the Pentateuch"s larger emphasis on the importance of the work of God"s Spirit among his people.... It is of interest here to note that the two key characters in the Pentateuch who provide a clear picture of genuine obedience to God"s will, Joseph and Joshua , are specifically portrayed in the narrative as those who are filled with the Spirit of God ( Genesis 41:38; Deuteronomy 34:9)." [�ote: Sailhamer, The Pentateuch . . ., p309.]

ELLICOTT, " The instructions needed for the making of the tabernacle, its furniture, and the priests’ dresses, were now complete. Moses was sufficiently informed, by what he had heard and seen, both as to the “Tent of Meeting” itself, and as to all its appurtenances and paraphernalia. But Moses was not himself an artist. Among the branches of knowledge comprised in his Egyptian education the skill of the artistic constructor had not been included. (See Excursus B. at the end of the Book.) It was therefore necessary that the manual work of carrying out the instructions given him should be entrusted to others. We might have expected that it would have been left to Moses to select the individuals from among the thousands of artificers who had accompanied him out of Egypt. But God saw fit to mark the importance of the work by taking the direct appointment of the persons to be employed upon Himself. He knew what was in man. He knew to whom he had given the highest artistic power, and who at the same time that they possessed it would work in the most religious spirit. He accordingly named two persons, Bezaleel and Aholiab, as those to whom the superintendence of the whole business should be given. Bezaleel was to be leader and chief, Aholiab assistant. Bezaleel’s task was to be general, Aholiab’s, apparently, special (Exodus 38:23). Both, however, were to receive the special assistance of God’s Holy Spirit for the due execution of their respective tasks (Exodus 31:3-6), and both, as chosen instruments of God, and faithful workers in His service, had their names equally commemorated in His Holy Book, and were thus upheld as examples to future ages.

EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME�TARY, "BEZALEEL A�D AHOLIAB.

Exodus 31:1-18.

�ext after this marking off so sharply of the holy from the profane, this consecration of men to special service, this protection of sacred unguents and sacred gums from secular use, we come upon a passage curiously contrasted, yet not really antagonistic to the last, of marvellous practical wisdom, and well calculated to make a nation wise and great.

The Lord announces that He has called by name Bezaleel, the son of Uri, and has filled him with the Spirit of God. To what sacred office, then, is he called? Simply to be a supreme craftsman, the rarest of artisans. This also is a divine gift. "I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom and in understanding and in knowledge and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold and in silver and in brass and in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood, to work in all manner of workmanship,"--that is to say, of manual dexterity. With him God had appointed Aholiab; "and in the hearts of all the wise-hearted I have put wisdom." Thus should be fitly made the tabernacle and its furniture, and the finely wrought garments, and the anointing oil and the incense.

So then it appears that the Holy Spirit of God is to be recognised in the work of the carpenter and the jeweller, the apothecary and the tailor. Probably we object to such a statement, so baldly put. But inspiration does not object. Moses told the children of Israel that Jehovah had filled Bezaleel with the Spirit of God, and also

Aholiab, for the work "of the engraver ... and of the embroiderer ... and of the weaver" (Exodus 35:31, Exodus 35:35).

It is quite clear that we must cease to think of the Divine Spirit as inspiring only prayers and hymns and sermons. All that is good and beautiful and wise in human art is the gift of God. We feel that the supreme Artist is audible in the wind among the pines; but is man left to himself when he marshals into more sublime significance the voices of the wind among the organ tubes? At sunrise and sunset we feel that

"On the beautiful mountains the pictures of God are hung";

but is there no revelation of glory and of freshness in other pictures? Once the assertion that a great masterpiece was "inspired" was a clear recognition of the central fire at which all genius lights its lamp: now, alas! it has become little more than a sceptical assumption that Isaiah and Milton are much upon a level. But the doctrine of this passage is the divinity of all endowment; it is quite another thing to claim Divine authority for a given product sprung from the free human being who is so richly crowned and gifted.

Thus far we have smoothed our way by speaking only of poetry, painting, music--things which really compete with nature in their spiritual suggestiveness. But Moses spoke of the robe-maker, the embroiderer, the weaver, and the perfumer.

�evertheless, the one is carried with the other. Where shall we draw the line, for example, in architecture or in ironwork? And there is another consideration which must not be overlooked. God is assuredly in the growth of humanity, in the progress of true civilisation--in all, the recognition of which makes history philosophical. It is not only the saints who feel themselves to be the instruments of a Greater than they. Cromwell and Bismarck, Columbus, Raleigh and Drake, William the Silent and William the Third, felt it. Mr. Stanley has told us how the consciousness that he was being used grew up in him, not through fanaticism but by slow experience, groping his way through the gloom of Central Africa.

But none will deny that one of the greatest factors in modern history is its industrial development. Is there, then, no sacredness here?

The doctrine of Scripture is not that man is a tool, but that he is responsible for vast gifts, which come directly from heaven--that every good gift is from above, that it was God Himself Who planted in Paradise the tree of knowledge.

�or would anything do more to restrain the passions, to calm the impulses and to elevate the self-respect of modern life, to call back its energies from the base competition for gold, and make our industries what dreamers persuade themselves that the mediaeval industries were, than a quick and general perception of what is meant when faculty goes by such names as talent, endowment, gift--of the glory of its use, the tragedy of its defilement. Many persons, indeed, reject this doctrine

because they cannot believe that man has power to abase so high a thing so sadly. But what, then, do they think of the human body?

What connection is there between all this and the reiteration of the law of the Sabbath? �ot merely that the moral law is now made a civic statute as well, for this had been done already (Exodus 23:12). But, as our Lord has taught us that a Jew on the Sabbath was free to perform works of mercy, it might easily be supposed lawful, and even meritorious, to hasten forward the construction of the place where God would meet His people. But He who said "I will have mercy and not sacrifice" said also that to obey was better than sacrifice. Accordingly this caution closes the long story of plans and preparations. And when Moses called the people to the work, his first words were to repeat it (Exodus 35:2).

Finally, there was given to Moses the deposit for which so noble a shrine was planned--the two tables of the law, miraculously produced.

If any one, without supposing that they were literally written with a literal finger, conceives that this was the meaning conveyed to a Hebrew by the expression "written with the finger of God," he entirely misses the Hebrew mode of thought, which habitually connects the Lord with an arm, with a chariot, with a bow made naked, with a tent and curtains, without the slightest taint of materialism in its conception. Did not the magicians, failing to imitate the third plague, say "This is the finger of a God"? Did not Jesus Himself "cast out devils by the finger of God"? (Exodus 8:19; Luke 11:20).

PARKER, "The Method of Providence

Exodus 31:1-11

We must never forget that all these instructions were given in a mountain and were to be carried out in a wilderness. These circumstances turn their execution into a Divine miracle. In the interpretation of the sacred record, bear in mind the circumstances. If you lose sight of the wilderness, you will not see the tabernacle; yea, though its glory—a tender glory of beauty—may gleam upon you and excite your imagination. If you detach the tabernacle from the sandy and dreary wilderness, you will fail to see all the mystery of light. The things belong to one another for instructive purposes. We do not let God have a fair place for building. We have turned the whole earth into wilderness, so that if he would build at all he must build under circumstances which act as a definite foil to every touch of beauty and every line of light Yet God will build in the wilderness as if it were a heaven. He will not be discouraged by the stones, the sands, the bleak surroundings. We could not work under such conditions; we should complain of the environment, asking with bitterness of tone, "Who can work in a place so dreary? and what is the reward for putting up in the wilderness a thing fit for the streets of the golden Jerusalem?" God builds everything with an eye to beauty. When he rounded off the earth and sent it flying in its appointed circuit, he blessed the little thing as a man

might bless his child, and said with infinite pathos, "It is very good." �ow that he comes to build upon it, we have spoiled it altogether, and if he were less than God he could not lay one stone upon another on a foundation so debased and spoiled as is now the earth under our devastating and unsparing hand. Behold, as otherwhere and everywhere, the tender goodness of God! He lets down his best things upon the earth as if it were a fit receiving-house,—"He spared not his own Son." Having sent down law and priesthood, tabernacle, and ark, and prophet, and a long line of angel-visitants with messages struck in every key of eloquence, last of all he sent his Son. So there must be something in this little night-world we have never seen; there must be in the substance of things verily a mystery which, whilst it is acknowledged by philosophy, is known and esteemed infinitely by its Creator. The philosophers are quite right when they cannot see in what they term "phenomena" any reason for the wondrous revelation of Christ as the heart and image of God. There is nothing in phenomena worthy of the Cross, or fully explanatory of it; but God sees the heart of things, the innermost enfoldment, the sanctum sanctorum,—that entity, that pulse, which is hidden from every created eye. Instead, therefore, of finding the revelation of the Gospel to be in excess of the phenomena, I will go further and say that God must find his own balance; he must put in the one scale what is equal to the other, and doing Song of Solomon , he does not degrade himself—he lifts up the work of his hands and the purpose of his heart.

God would have everything built beautifully. What an image of beauty have we seen this tabernacle to be through and through, flushed with colours we have never seen, and bright with lights that could not show themselves fully in the murkiness of this air! He would make us more beautiful than our dwelling-place. He would not have the house more valuable than the tenant. He did not mean the worshipper to be less than the tabernacle which he set up for worship. Are we living the beautiful life—the life solemn with sweet harmonies, broad in its generous purpose, noble in the sublimity of its prayer, like God in the perpetual sacrifice of its life? To answer such questions in the affirmative, or in any tone hinting positiveness, is to be building a life which will outshine the tabernacle, though it were outlined by the very finger of God.

�ot only will God build everything beautifully; his purpose is to have everything built for religious uses. He will not have mere beauty of form, for in the creation of form he may perpetrate an irony that would distress his own heart. His meaning is that the form shall help the thought, that images appealing to the eye shall also touch the imagination and graciously affect the whole spirit, and subdue into tender obedience and worship the soul and heart of man. What can be more ironical—and therefore to the spiritual mind more distressful—than for the stone church to be more beautiful than the living temple?—an organ out-singing the human voice?—some spectacle appealing to the fleshly eye grander than the invisible Revelation , seeking the attention of the inward vision of the soul? We are the worse for the beauty that is round about us if not the better. We cannot live under beautiful environments and circumstances without being debased by them, except we rise to their appeal and put all meaner things under our feet. It is a sad thing to become familiar with beauty,—so familiar with it as not really to see its charm. It is an

awful thing to have heard the Gospel so often as to feel weary under the appeal of its gracious thunder or its melting tenderness. We must watch our senses: they will victimise us if we do not; we shall be brought into a state of contemptuousness where we ought to be in a condition of worship. God, then, docs not build for mere beauty of form: he always seeks to help the worshipper. He builds altars. Whatever he touches he sanctifies. How possible it is to be living amongst beauty of landscape, of art, and beauty of every imaginable kind, and yet for the soul to sink into unresponsiveness, not seeing "sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, good in everything." That is irony; that is the contradiction which makes fools of men,—a depth below even moral degradation, for in moral degradation there may yet remain a kind of intellectual flicker, a species of intellectual majesty; but in the other condition the whole nature is depleted, debased, diabolised. God does not build for the gratification of taste, otherwise he would subserve the interests of mere vanity. There are some who are still worshippers of the goddess they call Taste. Be it that a thing is in what they call taste, and they are satisfied. They will not ask whether the child is living or dead, if the form is preserved in beauty of outline. Taste has its right place.

The tabernacle as a work of art is never to be held in contempt; but we miss its meaning; all its Divine poetry is lost upon us, so long as we can merely admire it. To admire under such circumstances is to insult. The true admiration is worship; the true applause is forgetfulness of the thing itself, complete absorption in the thought it can but dimly express. When our souls are on fire, when our blood is aflame with the true zeal, our senses will be ordered back that our spirit may go forward and turn the wilderness into heaven and common bread into a type of the Lord"s body.

God will not have the building put up as an expression of mere sentiment: otherwise, he would be assisting the cause of idolatry. �othing will satisfy him but a recognition of the supreme purpose. What is the tabernacle for?—for worship. What is the meaning of it?—it is a gate opening upon heaven. Why was it set up?—to lift us nearer God. If we fail to seize these purposes, if we fail of magnifying and glorifying them so as to ennoble our own life in the process, we have never seen the tabernacle. We have seen the thing which an artificer might have made—a toy fit for a bazaar, but not the Church of God, the holy place, the Divine tabernacle let down amongst the dwellings of men. Herein is it for ever true that we may have a Bible but no revelation; a sermon but no Gospel; we may be in the church, yet not in the sanctuary; we may admire beauty, and yet live the life of the drunkard and the debauchee.

In all his building—and God is always building—he qualifies every man for a particular work in connection with the edifice. Verily, God leaves nothing to Moses! When Moses goes down from this mountain, he will go as an errand-bearer, a messenger; he will simply go to carry out instructions. �othing has been left to his own invention; he will represent God. That is the true picture of all things. We have nothing to say, if we are true teachers, but what we have been told to say. God will tell every man the message which he wishes to have repeated, and every man will tell it in his own voice and in his own individuality of tone; but the message is God"s, or

it is not a message at all. �o man has any right, in this kind of work, to address any other man except that right is founded upon his inspiration. There is no impertinence more intolerable than for any man to stand up and tell his fellow-men to be good, to repent, if so be he is delivering something which he attributes to the heat and zeal of his own imagination. The culmination of impertinence is in what is called the pulpit—if any man shall stand up, and of his own morality tell other men to repent. The utterance must be Divine! it cannot be tolerated in the Prayer of Manasseh , for we are so constituted that human nature would charge upon the man his own action as a contradiction of his speech, and would order him out to reconcile himself with himself before he found fault with the policy of the world. But when the preacher knows that he is preaching to himself, that he is putting into human utterance what he believes to be a Divine message, then though his life be before him as a mocking contradiction, calling him liar when he prays, and hypocrite when he preaches, he knows that he has not gone a warfare at his own charges, and that he is but the medium on which the infinite thought breaks into human speech. �ot that the man will rest content with this. Whilst part of his supreme comfort may come to him along such lines, it will ever be his careful business with an industry that knows no relaxation to make his life equal to his speech. The point is that no teacher—Moses, Aaron, Isaiah , Paul—must stand up of his own motion to tell men to be better. Every man must speak that appealing word as the result of Divine inspiration and constraint. God qualifies every man for the work which he has to do. Aaron was not Moses, Bezaleel was not Aaron. Each had his own place, his own mission, his own work; each was Divinely chosen. When Bezaleel lifted the chisel he was performing a Divine purpose—as much so as was Aaron when he went forth with his garment distinguished by all colours of beauty and eloquent with the chime of golden bells. The one man wants the other man. The work stands still till that other man comes in. Moses, Aaron, and the sons of Aaron, and the seventy elders of Israel, are all standing still till the man with the chisel comes in; looking round upon their incomplete number, they say, "There is some man wanting." That is the true ideal of unity. Division of labour is necessary to the very bond of unity. Each man must feel that he is Divinely called and inspired to do a particular work, and he must feel that the Church cannot move in its completeness until he is in it. Then the shepherd shall be as the king, the nurse shall be almost a mother,—the lighter of the lamp shall have a distinct position as if he were in the family of Aaron, and the humblest toiler in the vineyard will erect himself in the solemn eventide and bless God that he has had some share in the day"s varied toil. Who has courage to read the following words aright, and to apply them to the practical history of mankind?

"And I have filled him (Bezaleel) with the spirit of God, in Wisdom of Solomon , and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship" ( Exodus 31:3-5).

Who can read these words as they ought to be read? How it makes ministers of God by the thousand! We have thought that Aaron was a religious man because of his clothing and because of many peculiarities which separated him from other men;

but the Lord distinctly claims the artificer as another kind of Aaron. He will undertake to show a man how to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting stones, and in carving timber, and in all manner of workmanship. Who divides life into sacred and profane? Who introduces the element of meanness into human occupation and service? God claims all things for himself. When he hears man speak and woman sing, he says—perhaps with a father"s pride (we use human terms to express human thoughts)—"Who hath made man"s mouth? Have not I, the Lord?" When he sees the sculptor making a rock into an image of Moses, may he not say, "Who hath made man"s hand, and given movement to his fingers and wrist? Have not I, the Lord"? Who will say that the preacher is a religious Prayer of Manasseh , but the artificer is a secular worker? Who will say that one man is inspired, and another man found out his own way for himself? If he found a low way, a mean or shallow way, a way without perspective, and suggestion, and apocalyptic outlook and issue, verily he found it out for himself. But let us claim all true workers as inspired men. We know that there is an inspired art. The world knows it; instinctively, unconsciously, the world uncovers before it.

There is an inspired poetry, make it of what measure you will. The great common heart knows it, says, "That is the true verse; how it rises, falls, plashes like a fountain, flows like a stream, breathes like a summer wind, speaks the thoughts we have long understood, but could never articulate!" The great human heart says, "That is the voice Divine; that is the appeal of Heaven." Why should we say that inspiration is not given to all true workers, whether in gold or in thought, whether in song or in prayer, whether in the type or in the magic eloquence of the burning tongue? Let us enlarge life, and enlarge Providence, rather than contract it, and not, whilst praying to a God in the heavens, have no God in the heart. You would work better if you realised that God is the Teacher of the fingers, and the Guide of the hand. All service would look tenderer to you, richer and larger, if you could say when it is done, "This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful and glorious in wisdom and in power." A new solemnity gathers around me as I think on these things. The universe is steadier. The whole temple is lifted up to higher grandeur. �ature becomes a sublime totality. Prayer is clothed with broader meaning. Labour is churched and glorified. Art turns its chiselled and flushed features towards its native heaven. Sin acquires a deadlier blackness, and begs to be hidden in some deepening hell. Through all cloud and noise, all rush and strife, God"s great trumpet clears a way for the commandments which represent his righteousness, and for the statutes which are to become songs in the house of human pilgrimage. Realise the unity of things. See the structural completeness of the whole idea of the universe and of life. Verily, "the tabernacle of God is with men upon the earth," and from the weariest wilderness of sand there is a straight path to the city whose streets are gold.

PETT 1-5, "The Appointment of the Men for The Task Of Producing All That Has Been Described (Exodus 31:1-11).

The list of what demonstrates men’s responsive loyalty and concern is now added to in terms of those who are chosen for the supremely important work of producing

the Tent of Meeting and the sacred furniture.

The Appointment of Bezalel (Exodus 31:1-5).

• Yahweh has called Bezalel the son of Uri the son of Hur of the tribe of Judah, and has filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and understanding, and knowledge and all manner of workmanship (Exodus 31:1-4).• To devise cunning works, to work in gold and silver and brazen copper, and in cutting stones for setting, and in carving of wood, to work in all manner of workmanship (Exodus 31:5).�otice how the two statements are balanced by ‘in all manner of workmanship’.

Verses 1-5The Appointment of the Men for The Task Of Producing All That Has Been Described (Exodus 31:1-11).

The list of what demonstrates men’s responsive loyalty and concern is now added to in terms of those who are chosen for the supremely important work of producing the Tent of Meeting and the sacred furniture.

The Appointment of Bezalel (Exodus 31:1-5).

• Yahweh has called Bezalel the son of Uri the son of Hur of the tribe of Judah, and has filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and understanding, and knowledge and all manner of workmanship (Exodus 31:1-4).• To devise cunning works, to work in gold and silver and brazen copper, and in cutting stones for setting, and in carving of wood, to work in all manner of workmanship (Exodus 31:5).�otice how the two statements are balanced by ‘in all manner of workmanship’.

Exodus 31:1-5

‘And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “See, I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge and in all manner of workmanship, to devise intricate (cunning) workmanship, to work in gold, and in silver and in bronze, and in cutting of stones for setting, and in cutting of wood, to work in all manner of workmanship.”It is easy to misrepresent what is said here. This does not say that all artistic gifts are the result of the work of the Spirit in men, for they patently are not. What it does say is that God can take those with artistic gifts and by His Spirit enable them to produce even greater works for His name.

Bezalel (meaning ‘in the shadow of God’) was to be put in charge of the construction of the Dwellingplace and its furniture. He was from the tribe of Judah and his ancestor Hur may well have been the one who was a prime assistant of Moses (Exodus 17:10; Exodus 17:12; Exodus 24:14). Only his father and his prominent

ancestors are mentioned. He was a man whose artistic ability was well known.

But Yahweh has ‘called him by name’. This is said of few (e.g. Moses (3:4; 33:12, 17); Cyrus (Isaiah 45:3-4); the Servant (Isaiah 49:1)) He is personally called to a vital ministry. And he has been carefully prepared for this special task and has now been endued by God’s Spirit in order to carry it through. Just as God created the world through His Spirit (Genesis 1:2), so He establishes His Dwellingplace by His Spirit.

“In wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge.” He has been given all the attributes of wisdom, understanding and knowledge. We may see this as signifying, by wisdom the power to invent and originate and work wisely, by understanding the ability to receive and take in all guidance from God and all His directions, and by knowledge the expertise necessary for the task. This is then expanded to include all manner of workmanship, including intricate work, metal work, jewellery work, and woodwork. As usual when the need arises God has His man especially prepared.

PULPIT, "THE CALL OF BEZALEEL A�D AHOLIAB. The directions for the construction of the tabernacle and its furniture being now complete, and the composition of the holy oil and the holy incense having been laid down minutely, it only remained to designate the persons to whom the oversight of the work was to be especially entrusted. These were to be two—Bezaleel, of the tribe of Judah, as head and chief; Aholiab, of the tribe of Dan, as his assistant. There can be no doubt that they were selected, primarily, as already possessing superior artistic powers and acquirements; but in appointing them God promised an infusion of special wisdom and knowledge, so that they were at once naturally and supernaturally fitted for their task. It is important to note that artistic ability is thus distinctly recognised as being quite as much a gift of God as any other, and indeed as coming to man through the Spirit of God (Exodus 31:3). Artistic excellence is not a thing to be despised. It is very capable of abuse; but in itself it is a high gift, bestowed by God on a few only, with the special intent that it should be used to his honour and glory—not indeed in his direct service only—but always so as to improve, elevate, refine mankind, and thus help towards the advancement of God's kingdom

2 “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah,

CLARKE, "I have called by name Bezaleel - That is, I have particularly appointed this person to be the chief superintendent of the whole work. His name is

significant, בצלאל betsal-el, in or under the shadow of God, meaning, under the especial

protection of the Most High. He was the son of Uri, the son of Hur, the son of Caleb or Chelubai, the son of Esron, the son of Pharez, the son of Judah. See 1Ch_2:5, 1Ch_2:9,1Ch_2:18, 1Ch_2:19, 1Ch_2:20, and see Clarke’s note on Exo_17:10.

GILL, "See, I have called by name Bezaleel,.... Had pitched upon, chosen, and distinguished him particularly from all other men to be the architect or chief master builder of the tabernacle, and to be the director and overseer of the whole work relating to it: the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem paraphrase it,""I have called with a good name Bezaleel";''as if respect was to be had to his name Bezaleel, as given him by God, and very expressive and significant; whereas the phrase of calling "by name" does not signify the imposing of a name upon him, but the singular and personal choice of him to an office: indeed, his name Bezaleel is very significant, and may be rendered, "in the shadow of God"; and he was under the shadow, influence, and protection of the Lord, and was called to be concerned in making those things, which were shadows of good things to come; and he may be considered in all as a type of Christ, who is the chief and master builder of his church, has the care and oversight of it, and under whom others work; for except he built the house, they labour in vain that build it; he was called by name, or eminently chosen to this work, he took not this honour to himself, but was called of God, as Bezaleel was, and was hid and abode under the shadow of the Almighty all the while he was concerned in it, see Psa_91:1.

the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; Bezaleel's father's name was Uri, which signifies, "my light"; and his grandfather's name Hur, which has the signification of liberty or freedom; the same that Moses left with Aaron to judge the people of Israel during his stay in the mount, and is thought to have been the husband of Miriam; so that his grandfather being living, he may be supposed to be but a young man: the Jews say (n) he was but thirteen years of age when he was employed in this service, but that is not probable; though indeed his antitype, when but twelve years of age, said, "wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" his Father, whom he calls Uri, my light, Psa_27:1 he being the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person; and is the Son of God that makes men free, and they are free indeed; and of whom it is evident that he sprung out of the tribe of Judah, a tribe greatly honoured of God.

HE�RY, " He nominates the persons that were to be employed, that there might be no contest about the preferment, nor envy at those that were preferred, God himself having made the choice. 1. Bezaleel was to be the architect, or master workman, Exo_31:2. He was of the tribe of Judah, a tribe that God delighted to honour; the grandson of Hur, probably that Hur who had helped to hold up Moses's hands (ch. 17), and was at this time in commission with Aaron for the government of the people in the absence of Moses (Exo_24:14); out of that family which was of note in Israel was the workman chosen, and it added no little honour to the family that a branch of it was employed, though but as a mechanic, or handicraft tradesman, for the service of the tabernacle. The Jews' tradition is that Hur was the husband of Miriam; and, if so, it was requisite that God should appoint him to this service, lest, if Moses himself had done it, he should be thought partial to his own kindred, his brother Aaron also being advanced to the

priesthood. God will put honour upon Moses's relations, and yet will make it to appear that he takes not the honour to himself or his own family, but that it is purely the Lord's doing. 2. Aholiab, of the tribe of Dan, is appointed next to Bezaleel, and partner with him, Exo_31:6. Two are better than one. Christ sent forth his disciples who were to rear the gospel tabernacle, two and two, and we read of his two witnesses. Aholiab was of the tribe of Dan, which was one of the less honourable tribes, that the tribes of Judah and Levi might not be lifted up, as if they were to engross all the preferments; to prevent a schism in the body, God gives honour to that part which lacked, 1Co_12:24. The head cannot say to the foot, I have no need of thee. Hiram, who was the head workman in the building of Solomon's temple, was also of the tribe of Dan, 2Ch_2:14. 3. There were others that were employed by and under these in the several operations about the tabernacle, Exo_31:6. Note, When God has work to do he will never want instruments to do it with, for all hearts and heads too are under his eye, and in his hand; and those may cheerfully go about any service for God, and go on in it, who have reason to think that, one way or other, he has called them to it; for whom he calls he will own and bear out.

JAMISO�, "See, I have called— Though the instructions about the tabernacle were privately communicated to Moses, it was plainly impossible that he could superintend the work in person, amid the multiplicity of his other duties. A head director or builder was selected by God Himself; and the nomination by such high authority removed all ground of jealousy or discontent on the part of any who might have thought their merits overlooked (compare Mat_18:1).

by name Bezaleel— signifying “in the shadow or protection of God”; and, as called to discharge a duty of great magnitude - to execute a confidential trust in the ancient Church of God, he has his family and lineage recorded with marked distinction. He belonged to the tribe of Judah, which, doubtless for wise and weighty reasons, God all along delighted to honor; and he was the grandson of Hur, a pious patriot (Exo_17:12), who was associated, by a special commission, with Aaron in the government of the people during the absence of Moses. Moreover, it may be noticed that a Jewish tradition affirms Hur to be the husband of Miriam; and if this tradition may be relied on, it affords an additional reason for the appointment of Bezaleel emanating from the direct authority of God.

K&D, "Exo_31:3

Wisdom, understanding, Knowledge - Or, that “right judgment in all things” for which we especially pray on Whitsunday; the perceptive faculty; and experience, a practical acquaintance with facts.

CALVI�, "2.See, I have called by name Bezaleel. In the remainder of this work we shall follow the course of the history to the end of Deuteronomy, where the death of Moses himself is recorded.

Although God had omitted nothing which related to the form of the tabernacle, but had accurately prescribed every thing that was to be done, still the actual difficulty of the work might have overwhelmed both Moses and the whole people with despair; for this was no ordinary work, or one on which the most skillful artificers might exercise their ingenuity, but a marvelous structure, the pattern of which had

been shewn on the Mount, so that it might seem incredible that any mortals should be able by their art to compass what God had commanded. Besides, they had been entirely engaged in servile tasks in Egypt, such as would extinguish all intellectual vigor, and prevent them from aspiring to any liberal arts. Hence we gather that all, who obediently follow God’s voice, are never destitute of His aid. In all our difficulties, then, let this prayer encourage us to proceed: (290) “Give what Thou commandest: and command what Thou wilt.”

To “call by name,” is equivalent to rendering eminent, so that Moses signifies that Bezaleel should be something extraordinary, as being endowed with a peculiar gift. Thus Cyrus is said in Isaiah 45:4, to be called by his name, because in the purpose of God he had been destined in a remarkable manner to execute such great things. Still, although the call of Bezaleel was special, because, as I have just said, God entrusted to him an unusual and by no means ordinary work, we gather that no one excels even in the most despised and humble handicraft, except in so far as God’s Spirit works in him. For, although “there are diversities of gifts,” still it is the same Spirit from whom they all flow, (1 Corinthians 12:4;) and also as God has seen fit to distribute and measure them out to every man. �or is this only the case with respect to the spiritual gifts which follow regeneration, but in all the branches of knowledge which come into use in common life. It is, therefore, a false division, when ungodly men ascribe all the means of our support partly to nature and God’s blessing, and partly to the industry of man, since man’s industry itself is a blessing from God. The poets are more correct who acknowledge that all which is suggested by nature comes from God; that all the arts emanate from Him, and therefore ought to be accounted divine inventions. The utility of this doctrine is two-fold; first, that all things which have reference to the support and defense of life, whenever we meet with them, should excite our gratitude, and that whatever seems to be derived from man’s ingenuity, should be regarded as proofs of God’s paternal solicitude for us; and, secondly, that we should honor God as the Author of so many good things, since He sanctifies them for our use. Moses applies many epithets to the Spirit, because he is speaking of so remarkable a work; yet we must conclude, float whatever ability is possessed by any emanates from one only source, and is conferred by God. This is the only difference, that Bezaleel was endued with consummate excellence, whilst God makes distribution to others according to His pleasure.

COKE, "Verses 2-6Exodus 31:2-6. See, I have called by name Bezaleel, &c.— Bezaleel and Aholiab, Exodus 31:5 are particularly chosen (which is the meaning of the phrase calling by name, Isaiah 45:3.) as the principal artists, the chief directors and overseers of the work and the workmen who were under them. For an explanation of the phrase, I have filled him with the Spirit of God, &c. Exodus 31:3 see note on ch. Exodus 28:3. It is not to be questioned, that the arts were carried to a great height at this time in Egypt; in which, no doubt, many of the Israelites were proficients, as having so long continued there: engraving on stones, in particular, being one of the inventions of luxury, abundantly proves the antiquity of the polite arts in Egypt. However, there can be no doubt, from the words of Scripture, that these artificers were peculiarly instructed and assisted by God himself; that God, whose spirit giveth wisdom of

every kind unto man. In carving of timber, Exodus 31:5 would be rendered more properly in cutting of timber, or in fabricating of timber (Lignisque fabre-factis, as Houbigant has it); for we read of no carved work in the tabernacle. An able writer observes, "That God would have something so appropriated to himself, especially in the more peculiar place of his worship, as that it was not lawful for any man to imitate the like for any other service or convenience,—appears by many instances; particularly the perfume of the incense, (a confection after the art of the apothecary,) some whereof was beaten very small, and put before the testimony in the tabernacle. The perfume was always smelt before the congregation; yet ye shall not make to yourselves according to the composition thereof: whosoever shall make like unto that, to smell thereto, shall even be cut off from his people. And, it is very probable, that, as God did inspire men who were before unskilful to be able to perform all those curious workmanships which he had prescribed to Moses, for his tabernacle, altars, &c. which had never been known before, (I have called Bezaleel, &c.) so he did extinguish all those sciences as soon as the work was finished for which he had designed them; for, after that was done, we find little of those curiosities in practice among that people, nor in any nations where we have many records of magnificent structures, until the building of the temple of Solomon; when they seem to have been recovered, probably by the same means."

ELLICOTT, "Verse 2(2) I have called by name.—It is a high honour to be called of God by name. He thus calls only those whom He appoints to some great work, as Moses (Exodus 3:4; Exodus 33:12), Samuel (1 Samuel 3:10), and Cyrus (Isaiah 45:3-4).

Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur.—Hur, the grandfather of Bezaleel, is generally supposed to be identical with the Hur who supported Moses’s hands (Exodus 17:12), and was left joint regent with Aaron when Moses went up into Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:14). There is, however, no evidence of this beyond the identity of the name.

Of the tribe of Judah.—Descended from Judah through Pharez, Hezron, and Caleb (1 Chronicles 2:5; 1 Chronicles 2:18-20).

PULPIT, "I have called by name. God "calls by name" only those whom he appoints to some high office, as Moses (Exodus 3:4; Exodus 33:12), Cyrus (Isaiah 45:3, Isaiah 45:4), and here Bezaleel and Aholiab. He honours us highly in even condescending to "know us by name," still more in "calling" us. Bezaleel is traced to Judah in Chronicles through five ancestors—Uri, Hur, Caleb, Hezron, and Pharez, Judah's son by Tamar. The genealogy, though less contracted than most of those in Exodus, probably contains two or three omissions. The son of Hur. Hur, the grandfather of Bezaleel, is thought to be the person mentioned in Exodus 17:10, and Exodus 24:14.

3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—

BAR�ES, "Exo_31:4

To devise cunning works - Rather, to devise works of skill. The Hebrew phrase is not the same as that rendered “cunning work” in respect to textile fabrics in Exo_26:1.

CLARKE, "Cunning works - machashaboth, works of invention or genius, in מחשבתthe goldsmith and silversmith line.

GILL, "To devise cunning works,.... To invent, contrive, and draw patterns, for the weavers particularly, for the making of the curtains of the tabernacle, the vail of the most holy place, the ephod, and the curious girdle of it, which were made of cunning work, curiously wrought by the weaver; and so Jarchi interprets this of the weaving of the work of Chosheb, or cunning work, of the devising of cunning works, or of the knowledge of witty inventions, by Wisdom or the Messiah, see Pro_8:12.

to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass; for it is not to be supposed there were either goldsmiths or brasiers among the Israelites; only masons and bricklayers, and brickmakers, and such sort of manufacturers; so that Bezaleel had need of immediate wisdom from the Spirit of God, not only to devise curious works in these several things as in others, but to teach men how to work in them, what tools to work with, and how to use them, how to melt these several metals, and into what forms and shapes to put them, and then to polish them; as there were some things in the temple to be made of gold, as the candlestick, others of silver, as the sockets of the tabernacle, and others of brass, as the altar of burnt offering, and its vessels, with other things.

HE�RY, "He qualifies these persons for the service (Exo_31:3): I have filled him with the Spirit of God; and (Exo_31:6) in the hearts of all that are wise-hearted I have put wisdom. Note, 1. Skill in common arts and employments is the gift of God; from him are derived both the faculty and the improvement of the faculty. It is he that puts even this wisdom into the inward parts, Job_38:36. He teaches the husbandman discretion (Isa_28:26), and the tradesman too; and he must have the praise of it. 2. God dispenses his gifts variously, one gift to one, another to another, and all for the good of the whole body, both of mankind and of the church. Moses was fittest of all to govern Israel, but Bezaleel was fitter than he to build the tabernacle. The common benefit is very much supported by the variety of men's faculties and inclinations; the genius of some leads them to be serviceable one way, of others another way, and all these worketh that one

and the self-same Spirit, 1Co_12:11. This forbids pride, envy, contempt, and carnal emulation, and strengthens the bond of mutual love. 3. Those whom God calls to any service he will either find, or make, fit for it. If God give the commission, he will in some measure give the qualifications, according as the service is. The work, that was to be done here was to make the tabernacle and the utensils of it, which are here particularly reckoned up, Exo_31:7, etc. And for this the persons employed were enabled to work in gold, and silver, and brass. When Christ sent his apostles to rear the gospel tabernacle, he poured out his Spirit upon them, to enable them to speak with tongues the wonderful works of God; not to work upon metal, but to work upon men; so much more excellent were the gifts, as the tabernacle to be pitched was a greater and more perfect tabernacle, as the apostle calls it, Heb_9:11.

BE�SO�, "Exodus 31:3. And I have filled him with the Spirit of God — And, Exodus 31:6, In the hearts of all that are wise-hearted I have put wisdom. Skill in common employments is the gift of God; it is he that puts even this wisdom into the inward parts, Job 38:36. He teacheth the husbandman discretion, Isaiah 28:26; and the tradesman too, and he must have the praise of it. Although it is probable that the arts were carried to a great height at this period in Egypt; yet, considering the state of slavery in which the Israelites had been held there, and the hard labour to which they had been compelled, it is not to be supposed that many of them had made any proficiency therein, or were qualified for such curious workmanship as had been prescribed. But that God who often chooses the weak things of the world to confound the wise; who took the apostles from their fishing-boats, and from other low occupations, and enabled them to speak fluently and correctly in the languages of all nations to which they were sent to preach; endued the persons here mentioned with the skill requisite for the work to which they were appointed. A late commentator remarks here, “�either Moses nor Aaron, nor any of Aaron’s sons, were appointed to this service; the honour already conferred must suffice for them, and if they attended to their proper work, they would find that also sufficient. �or were Moses’s sons appointed; for it was the Lord’s will that his disinterestedness and divine legation should appear illustrious in the obscurity of his posterity.”

ELLICOTT, "(3-4) I have filled him with the spirit of God . . . to devise cunning works.—“Every good gift and every perfect gift (intellectual power no less than others) is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Artistic ability is a Divine gift, a very precious gift, best employed in God’s direct service, and always to be employed in subordination to His will, as an improving, elevating, and refining—not as a corrupting—influence.

In wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge.—By “wisdom” is probably meant the power to invent and originate artistic forms; by “understanding,” the ability to appreciate artistic suggestions received from others; by “knowledge,” acquaintance with the methods and processes of art. Bezaleel was to possess all these gifts.

In all manner of workmanship.—He was also to possess that wonderful dexterity of

hand on which the power of artistic execution mainly depends.

EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO�ARY, "Exodus 31:3-4

The ambition of art, to come ever nearer to a perfect work, is an evidence that the spirit of the Master-Artist stirs and quickens the human spirit. "See, I have filled him with the spirit of God, in Wisdom of Solomon , and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works." In the spirit of God every art is latent.... Faith and art have all the sympathy of mother and child. �either of them is content with nature"s conditions. Faith discerns a higher world, and art would fain body it forth.

—Dr. John Pulsford, The Supremacy of Prayer of Manasseh , pp97 f.

Compare Adam Bede"s words to his brother, in the opening chapter of Adam Bede: "There"s such a thing as being over-speritial; we must have something beside Gospel i" this world. Look at the canals, an" th" aqueducs, an" th" coal-pit engines, and Arkwright"s mills there at Cranford; a man must learn summat beside Gospel to make them things, I reckon. But t" hear some o" them preachers, you"d think as a man must be doing nothing all"s life but shutting"s eyes and looking what"s a-going on inside him. I know a man must have the love o" God in his soul, and the Bible"s God"s word. But what does the Bible say? Why, it says as God put His sperrit into the workman as built the tabernacle, to make him do all the carved work and things as wanted a nice hand. And this is my way o" lookin" at it: there"s the sperrit o" God in all things and all times—week-day as well as Sunday—and i" the great works and inventions, and i" the figuring and the mechanics. And God helps us with our headpieces and our hands as well as with our souls."

Reference.—XXXI:3-4.—G. Matheson, Voices of the Spirit, p8.

PULPIT, "The Spirit of God. There is no article in the Hebrew, any more than in Genesis 1:1; and some would therefore translate "a Divine Spirit"; but no change is needed. Ruakh elohim contains in itself the idea of singularity, since God has but one Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the medium of communication whereby God the Father bestows all gifts upon us. In wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge. By the first of these terms is meant the power to invent and originate; by the second ability to receive and appreciate directions and suggestions; by the third, such information as is acquired by experience and acquaintance with facts. Bezaleel was to have all these, and, in addition, was to be wise in all manner of workmanship; i.e.—to possess manual dexterity, the power of artistic execution.

4 to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver

and bronze,

BAR�ES, "Exo_31:4

To devise cunning works - Rather, to devise works of skill. The Hebrew phrase is not the same as that rendered “cunning work” in respect to textile fabrics in Exo_26:1.

CLARKE, "Cunning works - machashaboth, works of invention or genius, in מחשבתthe goldsmith and silversmith line.

GILL, "To devise cunning works,.... To invent, contrive, and draw patterns, for the weavers particularly, for the making of the curtains of the tabernacle, the vail of the most holy place, the ephod, and the curious girdle of it, which were made of cunning work, curiously wrought by the weaver; and so Jarchi interprets this of the weaving of the work of Chosheb, or cunning work, of the devising of cunning works, or of the knowledge of witty inventions, by Wisdom or the Messiah, see Pro_8:12.

to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass; for it is not to be supposed there were either goldsmiths or brasiers among the Israelites; only masons and bricklayers, and brickmakers, and such sort of manufacturers; so that Bezaleel had need of immediate wisdom from the Spirit of God, not only to devise curious works in these several things as in others, but to teach men how to work in them, what tools to work with, and how to use them, how to melt these several metals, and into what forms and shapes to put them, and then to polish them; as there were some things in the temple to be made of gold, as the candlestick, others of silver, as the sockets of the tabernacle, and others of brass, as the altar of burnt offering, and its vessels, with other things.

JAMISO� 3-5, "I have filled him with the spirit of God— It is probable that he was naturally endowed with a mechanical genius, and had acquired in Egypt great knowledge and skill in the useful, as well as liberal, arts so as to be a first-class artisan, competent to take charge of both the plain and ornamental work, which the building of the sacred edifice required. When God has any special work to be accomplished, He always raises up instruments capable of doing it; and it is likely that He had given to the son of Uri that strong natural aptitude and those opportunities of gaining mechanical skill, with an ultimate view to this responsible office. Notwithstanding that his grand duty was to conform with scrupulous fidelity to the pattern furnished, there was still plenty of room for inventive talent and tasteful exactness in the execution; and his natural and acquired gifts were enlarged and invigorated for the important work.

ELLICOTT, "Verse 4-5(4-5) Cunning works . . . in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones

. . .—It is a characteristic of early art that it eschews specialism, and it is as nearly universal as possible. Theodore of Samos (ab. B.C. 600-560) was an architect, a

worker in bronze, and an engraver of hard stones. Michael Angelo was an architect, painter, and sculptor. Giotto was the same, and also a worker in mosaic. It is some time before, in each particular people or country, the imitative arts become separated, and each artist aspires to eminence in one branch only. (Comp. the multiform artistic powers ascribed to Hiram of Tyre in chap. 214.)

In cutting of stones, to set them—i.e., in gem-engraving. This branch of art was needed for engraving the names of the tribes upon the two onyxes of the ephod (Exodus 28:9), and upon the twelve precious stones of the breastplate (Exodus 28:17-18). It was an art very early practised both in Chaldæa and in Egypt. (See �ote 2 on Exodus 28:8.)

In carving of timber.—Rather, cutting of timber. The woodwork of the sanctuary was not “carved,” but plain.

PULPIT, "Exodus 31:4, Exodus 31:5

The result of these gifts would be to enable him—1. To devise cunning works—i.e; to design everything excellently; and 2. To work in all manner of workmanship—i.e; to carry out his designs with success. It has been said that "as everything that had to be done was prescribed in strict and precise detail, there was to be no exercise of original powers of invention nor of taste" (Cook); but this was scarcely so. The forms of the cherubim, the patterns to be woven into the stuffs, or embroidered on them, the shapes of the vessels, of the capitals of the pillars, and of the laver were not prescribed in the directions. Bezaleel and Aholiab would have had to design them after such a description as Moses could give of the "pattern" which he had seen in the mount. In doing this, there would be much room for the exercise of inventive power and taste.

5 to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.

CLARKE, "In cutting of stones, etc. - Every thing that concerned the lapidary’s, jeweler’s, and carver’s art.

GILL, "And in cutting of stones to set them,.... Not of marble stones, or of any common stones used in building, and the cutting and hewing of them to be laid therein, for of those there was no use in the tabernacle; but of precious stones, and the cutting of them, and setting of them in their ouches or enclosures, as the onyx stones on the shoulders of the high priest, and the twelve precious stones in his breastplate: Bezaleel was taught by the Spirit of God the art of jewelling, and instructed others in it:

and in carving of timber; or rather, "in cutting timber" (o); for it is the same word as before, for we have no account of any carved work in the tabernacle; and therefore this must design the work of carpenters and joiners in cutting the shittim wood, making planks and boards of it, and of them the sides of the tabernacle, jointed into sockets; the ark of the testimony, the shewbread table, and altar of incense, which were of timber, and the workmanship of such persons:

to work in all manner of workmanship; in all other manufactories; as spinning, weaving, embroidery, dying various colours, compounding ointment, perfume, &c.

BE�SO�, "Exodus 31:5. In cutting of stones — That is, in cutting and setting the precious stones, and in graving on them what God commanded. In carving of timber — Rather in cutting of timber, as the same word is rendered in the beginning of the verse; for we do not read of any carved work about the tabernacle.

PULPIT, "In cutting of stones—i.e; "in Genesis-curling." The fabric of the tabernacle was entirely of metal, cloth, and wood. In carving of timber. Rather "cutting." The word is the same as that used of the stones. And no ornamental "carving" of the woodwork was prescribed.

6 Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given ability to all the skilled workers to make everything I have commanded you:

CLARKE, "In the hearts of all that are wisehearted I have put wisdom - So every man that had a natural genius, as we term it, had an increase of wisdom by immediate inspiration from God, so that he knew how to execute the different works

which Divine wisdom designed for the tabernacle and its furniture. Dark as were the heathens, yet they acknowledged that all talents, and the seeds of all arts, came from God. Hence Seneca: Insita nobis omnium artium semina, magisterque ex occulto Deus producit ingenia. In the same way Homer attributes such curious arts to Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, and Vulcan, the god of handicrafts.

�ς�δ’ �τε�τις�χρυσον�περιχευεται�αργυρ$�ανηρ

Ιδρις,��ν�(φαιστος�δεδαεν�και�Παλλας�Αθηνη

Τεχνην�παντοιην,�χαριεντα�δε�εργα�τελειει.Odyss., 1. vi., ver. 232.

As by some artist, to whom Vulcan givesHis skill divine, a breathing statue lives;By Pallas taught, he frames the wondrous mould,And o’er the silver pours the fusile gold.

- Pope.

And all this the wisest of men long before them declared; when speaking of the wisdom of God he says, I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions; Pro_8:12. See Clarke’s note on Exo_28:3, to which the reader is particularly desired to refer. There is something remarkable in the name of this second

superintendent, אהליאב Aholiab, the tabernacle of the father, or, the father is my

tabernacle; a name nearly similar in its meaning to that of Bezaleel, see Clarke’s note on Exo_31:2.

GILL, "And I, behold, I have given with him Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan,.... To be a partner with him, and to assist in the direction and oversight of the work of the tabernacle; which was done that there might appear to be a sufficiency in the direction, and that too much honour might not be given to one tribe; and it is observable, that as Solomon of the tribe of Judah was the builder of the temple, one of the tribe of Dan also was a principal artificer in it, 2Ch_2:14 and it is no unusual thing for two persons to be joined together in matters of moment and importance, as Moses and Aaron, who were sent to Pharaoh for Israel's dismission out of the land of Egypt; the apostles of Christ, and seventy disciples, who were sent out two by two; the two witnesses prophesying in sackcloth, the two anointed ones standing before the Lord of the whole earth; and Joshua and Zerubbabel in the rebuilding of the temple: nor is it unusual for both such persons to be types of Christ, as Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Zerubbabel, were; and here Bezaleel, as before, and now Aholiab, whose name signifies "the Father's tent" or "tabernacle"; he being concerned in the oversight of the tabernacle of God and the building of it, and his father's name Ahisamach, according to Hillerus (p), signifies, "one supports", i.e. God; and may be a figure of Christ, whose human nature is the true tabernacle God pitched, and not man, and who, as Mediator, is Jehovah's servant, whom he upholds:

and in the hearts of all that are wise hearted; men of ingenuity, that had good natural parts and abilities, and minds disposed to curious works, and able to perform them, under the guidance and direction of others:

I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded thee; in the preceding chapters; these persons were to work under Bezaleel and Aholiab, and to do as they were ordered and directed by them; and having good natural abilities, mechanical heads and hearts, and divine wisdom in a large measure communicated to them, they were greatly qualified for the service of the tabernacle, and making all things appertaining to it: thus Christ, the architect and master builder of his church, has wise builders under him, that work in his house, being qualified with the gifts and graces of his Spirit from him, see Zec_6:12.

JAMISO�, "I have given with him Aholiab— He belonged to the tribe of Dan, one of the least influential and honorable in Israel; and here, too, we can trace the evidence of wise and paternal design, in choosing the colleague or assistant of Bezaleel from an inferior tribe (compare 1Co_12:14-25; also Mar_6:7).

all that are wise-hearted I have put wisdom— At that period, when one spirit pervaded all Israel, it was not the man full of heavenly genius who presided over the work; but all who contributed their skill, experience, and labor, in rendering the smallest assistance, showed their piety and devotedness to the divine service. In like manner, it was at the commencement of the Christian Church (Act_6:5; Act_18:2).

K&D 6-11, "There were associated with Bezaleel as assistants, Oholiab, the son of Achisamach, of the tribe of Dan, and other men endowed with understanding, whom God had filled with wisdom for the execution of His work. According to Exo_38:23, Oholiab was both faber, a master in metal, stone, and wood work, and also an artistic weaver of colours. In Exo_38:7-11, the words to be executed, which have been minutely described in ch. 24-30, are mentioned singly once more; and, in addition to these, we

find in Exo_31:10 ַה8ְָרד mentioned, along with, or rather before, the holy dress of ִ=ְגֵדי

Aaron. This is the case also in Exo_35:19 and Exo_39:41, where there is also the

additional clause, “to serve (ֵׁשֵרת ministrare) in the sanctuary.” They were composed,

according to Exo_39:1, of blue and red purple, and crimson. The meaning of the word

serad, which only occurs in these passages, is quite uncertain. The Rabbins understand by the bigde hasserad the wrappers in which the vessels of the sanctuary were enclosed when the camp was broken up, as these are called begadim of blue and red purple, and crimson, in Num_4:6. But this rendering is opposed to the words which follow, and which indicate their use in the holy service, i.e., in the performance of worship, and therefore are quite inapplicable to the wrappers referred to. There is even less ground for referring them, as Gesenius and others do, to the inner curtains of the tabernacle, or the inner hangings of the dwelling-place. For, apart from the uncertainty of the rendering given to serad, viz., netted cloth, filet, it is overthrown by the fact that these curtains of the dwelling-place were not of net-work; and still more decisively by the order in which the bigde hasserad occur in Exo_39:41, viz., not till the dwelling-place and tent, and everything belonging to them, have been mentioned, even down to the hangings of the court and the pegs of the tent, and all that remains to be noticed is the clothing of the priests. From the definition “to serve in the sanctuary,” it is obvious that the bigde serad

were clothes used in the worship, στολαA�λειτουργικαί, as the lxx have rendered it in agreement with the rest of the ancient versions-that they were, in fact, the rich robes

which constituted the official dress of the high priest, whilst “the holy garments for Aaron” were the holy clothes which were worn by him in common with the priests.

CALVI�, "6.And I, behold, I have given with him Aholiab. It is no matter of surprise that the principal workman should be chosen from the tribe of Judah; (291) why a companion should be given him from the tribe of Dan can hardly be accounted for, unless its obscurity more highly illustrated the grace of God.

A kind of contradiction at first sight appears, when it is added immediately afterwards that God had put wisdom in the hearts of all that were wise-hearted; for, if they already excelled in intelligence, what was the object of this new inspiration? Hence it has been commonly supposed, that the special grace of God was only given in aid of that ability which we naturally possess. But rather are we taught by this passage that, when anything grows in us, and our endowments manifest themselves more conspicuously, our progress is only derived from the continued operation of the Spirit. God had already conferred acuteness and intelligence on the artificers in question; yet their dexterity was only, as it were, the seed; and He now promises that He will give them more than had previously appeared. I know that the words may be thus explained, — Whosoever shall be fit and proper for the work, have therefore been endowed with intelligence, because God has inspired it by His secret influence; but the other exposition is more simple. What follows as to the various parts of the tabernacle has been already treated of elsewhere.

COFFMA�, "Verses 6-11"And I, behold, I have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and in the hearts of all who are wise-hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded thee; the tent of meeting, and the ark of the testimony, and the mercy-seat that is thereupon, and all the furniture of the Tent, and the table and its vessels, and the pure candlestick with all its vessels, and the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt-offering with all its vessels, and the laver and its base, and the finely wrought garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments of his sons, to minister in the priest's office, and the anointing oil, and the incense of sweet spices for the holy place: according to all that I have commanded thee shall they do."

"Behold, I have appointed with him Oholiab ..." It is strange indeed that the man appointed by the Lord to make the curtains and have charge of all the fabric work for the Tent (Exodus 31:7) was himself the bearer of a name Oholiab, which means "Father's Tent."[5] It is mentioned that he was of the tribe of Dan; and although that tribe does not appear to have been famous for such men of artistic talent, it was likewise true that Hiram, the chief artist employed by Solomon for the ornamental work of the temple, was also a Danite (2 Chronicles 2:14). Despite such notable exceptions, "The Danites in general were more warlike and rude than artistic (Genesis 49:17; Deuteronomy 33:22; Judges 13:2; Judges 18:11,27)."[6]

"The finely wrought garments (Exodus 31:10) ..." These included three types of

garments, enumerated by Cook, as follows:

The three types of dress were:

(1) the richly adorned state robes of the High Priest (Exodus 28:6-29:1ff);

(2) the holy garments of white linen worn by the High Priest on the day of Atonement;

(3) the garments of white linen worn by all the priests in their regular ministrations.[7]

Exodus 31:7-11 have an enumeration of all of the various works already commanded to be made; but the order has two significant changes. The tabernacle is named first, and the altar of incense falls into its more logical position next to the candlestick.

ELLICOTT, "(6) Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach.—It has been observed above (see the first �ote on the chapter) that Bezaleel’s work was general, Aholiab’s, special. Our version, indeed, styles the latter “an engraver, and a cunning workman, and an embroiderer” (Exodus 38:23), from which it might be supposed that, like Bezaleel, he cultivated various branches of art. In the original, however, nothing is said of engraving, and the true meaning seems to be that Aholiab had the charge of the textile fabrics needed for the sanctuary, and directed both the weaving and the embroidery, but did not intermeddle in other matters. (See �ote on Exodus 38:23).

Of the tribe of Dan.—The tribe of Dan is among the most undistinguished; but it produced two great artists—Aholiab, the skilful maker of the textile fabrics of the tabernacle, and Hiram, the master workman employed in the ornamentation of Solomon’s temple (2 Chronicles 2:14).

All that are wise hearted.—On the expression “wise hearted,” see �ote 1 on Exodus 28:3.

PETT, "Verses 6-11The Appointment of Bezalel’s Assistants (Exodus 31:6-11).

a Yahweh has appointed with Bezalel, Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, and has put wisdom within the hearts in the hearts of all who are wise-hearted so that they might make all that Yahweh has commanded (Exodus 31:6).b �amely, the Tent of Meeting and the Ark of the Testimony, and the Mercy-seat which is on it, and all the furniture of the tent, and the Table and its vessels, and the pure lampstand with all its vessels, and the altar of incense, and the altar of whole burnt offering with all its vessels, and the laver and its accompaniment (Exodus 31:7-9)b And the finely wrought garments, and the holy garments for Aaron the Priest, and the garments of his sons to minister in the priests’ office, and the anointing oil and

the incense of sweet spices for the Holy Place (Exodus 31:10-11 a).a They must do according to all that Yahweh has commanded them (Exodus 31:11 b).Exodus 31:6 a

“And I, behold I have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan.”Chief assistant to Bezalel was to be Oholiab, a Danite. See Exodus 38:23. He was a skilled engraver and embroiderer. His name is foreign and probably means ‘a father is my tent’. It probably signifies a ruler whose tent is a father to his clan. It was a very apt name in view of the task that lay ahead. But note that he is not strictly ‘called by name’. He is appointed.

Exodus 31:6-11 (6b-11)

“And in the hearts of all who are wise-hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded you, the Tent of Meeting, and the Ark of the Testimony, and the Mercy-seat that is on it, and all the furniture of the Tent, and the table and its vessels, and the pure lampstand with all its vessels, and the altar of incense, and the altar of whole burnt offering with all its vessels, and the laver and its base, and the finely wrought garments, and the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments of his sons, to minister in the priest’s office, and the anointing oil, and the incense of sweet spices for the Holy Place. They shall do in accordance with all that I have commanded you.”Under Bezalel and Oholiab are a body of skilled and highly trained men. It should be noted that had these men not done their apprenticeships and qualified in their particular careers they would not have been chosen for this sacred task. They are ‘wise-hearted’, that is, skilled and trained. It behoves all God’s people to seek to fit themselves for His service by proper training, and become wise hearted. But in this time of special need Yahweh will give them more wisdom, enablement for the supreme task that they have been given.

These chosen men will therefore produce all that has been described from 25:1 onwards. �ote that the altar of incense and the laver are included in the list. Their placing as described earlier (coming later than the other furniture in the Dwellingplace) was to distinguish the furniture which indicated God’s activity towards His people from that which indicated the response of the people towards God, but they are of ‘equal’ importance in overall worship, and are here given their functional place. The order given here is in general followed in Exodus 36:1 to Exodus 38:23.

SIMEO�, "GOD THE SOURCE OF ALL WISDOM

Exodus 31:6. In the hearts of all that are wise-hearted I have put wisdom.

WHE� the time is come for carrying into effect the purposes of God, difficulties, which appeared insurmountable, vanish, and “mountains become a plain.” The

obstacles which opposed the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, were only augmented till the precise hour for its accomplishment arrived: but at the appointed hour, even “the self-same night,” they not only went out unmolested, but were actually thrust out by their oppressors. At the Red Sea, an interposition equally seasonable was vouchsafed to them; as was also a supply both of bread and water in the wilderness, in the hour of need. Those who looked only to second causes judged the various blessings unattainable: but, on all the occasions, God shewed that there was nothing impossible to him; and that whatever he had ordained, should not fail for want of means and instruments whereby to effect it. Having brought his people into the wilderness, he commanded a tabernacle to be reared, and to be furnished with a great diversity of vessels proper for his service. The most costly materials were to be used, and the most exquisite workmanship employed, in the structure of the whole. But where should all the materials be found? Behold! the Egyptians themselves had loaded the Israelites with them to an immense amount, no one throughout the whole land of Egypt refusing to an Israelite any thing that he required. Still, though gold and silver and precious stones and other things were found amongst them, and were granted by them with a liberal hand, who was there amongst the whole nation that could fashion them according to the model shewn to Moses in the mount? They had been so oppressed, that it would be in vain to look for persons sufficiently skilled in works of gold and jewellery and embroidery, to execute all that was required for the occasion. But was the work therefore delayed? �o: God, by his Spirit, instructed two persons, Bezaleel and Aholiab, with a perfect knowledge of the whole work; and, under their superintendence, others were speedily qualified for executing every one the office assigned to him; so that the whole was finished within the short space of nine months. Every one performed his part aright, because “in the heart of all that were wise-hearted God had put wisdom.”

From this remarkable expression I shall take occasion to point out, in reference to “wisdom,”

I. Its only source—

The wisdom here spoken of, proceeds from God—

[Whatever difference may be occasioned in men by education, the original faculty of understanding is our Creator’s gift. Some, indeed, are born into the world destitute of any rational powers: if, therefore, we have been favoured with them, we are the more indebted to the goodness of our heavenly Father. It is probable that amongst the poor, or even amongst the uncivilized part of mankind, many possess by nature as much strength of intellect as the most learned philosopher; whilst, for want of the advantages of education, they have never been able to turn it to any good account. If. therefore, we have enjoyed the means and opportunities of cultivation which have been withheld from others, we must ascribe that also to God, who in this respect, also, has made us to differ. The Scriptures trace to this same source the wisdom manifested by the husbandman in ploughing his ground and threshing out the corn: “Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open the clods of his ground? His God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him …The fitches

are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. This also cometh forth from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working [�ote: Isaiah 28:24-29.].” We wonder not, therefore, that the skill so suddenly given to Bezaleel, and to all who worked under him, is ascribed to God; for that was indeed truly miraculous. But the declaration which traces it to God, extends to every kind and every measure of wisdom; and consequently constrains us to give God the glory of every faculty we possess, and of all the improvement that we have made of it. We are not left in any respect to “sacrifice to our own drag, or to burn incense to our own net:” the whole honour must be given to God, and to God alone.]

But to the same source must we yet more eminently trace the attainment of spiritual wisdom—

[Of this, no measure whatever is born with man, or is natural to man. “He is born like a wild ass’s colt.” As for “the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” �or is wisdom the product of mere human instruction: for “the world by wisdom knew not God.” The Apostles, when instructed in divine knowledge, traced the acquisition to the only true source: “We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God.” Even the Messiah himself was instructed for the discharge of his office by the very same Spirit who wrought in Bezaleel for the forming of the tabernacle. Of Bezaleel it is said, “I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship:” and of Jesus it is said, “The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord [�ote: Isaiah 11:2-3.].” And the same Spirit will be given to us also, to enlighten our minds with saving knowledge: for St. Paul says, “I pray always for you, that God may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling [�ote: Ephesians 1:17-18.].” To him, then, must every man look for wisdom: and from him shall every man receive it, who seeks it in a becoming way [�ote: Proverbs 2:1-6.]. As Bezaleel and Aholiab were instructed at once how to perform all manner of work; and as the disciples of Christ, poor uneducated fishermen, were enabled at once to speak different kinds of tongues; so shall the Spirit impart to us also, according to our respective necessities, that we may both know and do all that God has required of us.]

In the works to which this consummate wisdom was to be applied, we may see,

II. Its most appropriate use—

For the formation of the tabernacle was this wisdom given—

[For that work it was indispensably necessary: for the things which were to be formed had never been seen before; no, nor any thing like them: and for such sacred

vessels the most exquisite skill was required. Had even angels been employed in the formation of this structure, their utmost abilities would have been well employed.]

And have not we a similar use for the wisdom bestowed on us?

[Behold “the tabernacle of David which is broken down!” does not that need to be reared again [�ote: Amos 9:11-12 with Acts 15:16-17.] ? Are not the whole race of mankind to be formed as “vessels of honour meet for their Master’s use?” But who can discharge this office? If St. Paul, with all his endowments, was constrained to ask, “Who is sufficient for these things [�ote: 2 Corinthians 2:16.] ?” how much more must we? For, who amongst us has such an insight into the deep mysteries of the Gospel, as to be fully assured that he shall in no respect deviate from “the pattern shewn” to Prophets and Apostles “in the mount?” Or who shall undertake to fashion the rude materials of the human heart after the perfect image of our God? Who that knows any thing of Jewish prejudice or Gentile superstition, shall attempt to cope with them in his own strength, or hope to reduce them to the obedience of faith? Verily the Preacher of the Gospel needs to be endued with wisdom from above, with wisdom too of no ordinary measure, for the work to which he is called: and all the talents that the most distinguished philosopher can possess, will find ample scope for exercise in this great work. In comparison of rearing a tabernacle for the Lord, what is there under heaven that deserves a thought? If the forming of the shadows of divine truth was a just employment of supernatural skill, doubtless an exhibition of the substance may profitably engage all the talents that were ever confided to mortal man.]

To all, then, I would say,

1. Acknowledge God in all the talents you possess—

[�ot only Bezaleel and Aholiab, but all who were employed in the different departments of the work, were taught of God. So, whatever furniture we have for the constructing of God’s spiritual tabernacle, we have received it from the same heavenly source, and must ascribe the glory of it altogether to our God. Let this be borne in mind, and none will envy those who are endowed with richer talents than themselves, or despise those who are called to occupy a humbler post. The eye in the natural body vaunts not itself above the hand, nor the hand above the foot; but each is satisfied with executing the work for which it is fitted and ordained: so let it be with us; every one doing what God has called him to, and every one seeking the glory of God in all that lie performs.]

2. Improve your talents for the end for which they have been committed to you—

[At the formation of the tabernacle, every one engaged, according to his ability, to expedite the work. Men, women, rulers, all accounted it their honour to be employed for God [�ote: Exodus 35:21; Exodus 35:24-27.]: and “so,” we are told, “it became one tabernacle [�ote: Exodus 36:13.].” And who can say what the effect would be, if

all, men, women, and rulers, engaged heartily in the work of God, and laboured to advance his glory in the world? Beloved Brethren, let us not sit down in despair, because the work is too great and arduous. God can fit us for it, however ignorant we be; and can bless us in it, however unequal we may be for the task assigned us. Only let it be said of every one amongst us, “He has done what he could,” and we shall yet see glorious days amongst us; and God will rear his tabernacle, and glorify himself, as in the days of old.

But, for this end, it is necessary that you “stir up your hearts;” for, by nature, they are sadly averse to it. �or need we fear that any exertions of ours will exceed the demand for them. The materials for the tabernacle, and the work, were soon supplied, when a whole nation were willing and active in the cause: but there is no fear that we shall have to bid you to cease either from your offerings or your labours [�ote: Exodus 36:5-7.]. The whole world is the tabernacle which you are to rear; and every soul within it is a vessel you are to form for God’s honour. Go on then, all of you, both in your individual and collective capacity, without intermission and without weariness: so shall the work proceed to the honour of our God, and a rich recompence be treasured up for your own souls.]

PULPIT, "Aholiab appears to have had the entire charge of the textile fabrics, both woven and embroidered (Exodus 38:23). Of the tribe of Ban. It is remarkable that Hiram, the chief artist employed by Solomon for the ornamental work of the temple, was also a descendant of Dan (2 Chronicles 2:14). Yet the Danites were in general rather warlike and rude than artistic (Genesis 49:17; Deuteronomy 33:22; 13:2; 18:11, 18:27). In the hearts of all that are wise hearted have I put wisdom. "Unto him that hath shall be given. Those who were already "wise hearted—possessed, that is, of artistic power—were selected by God to receive extraordinary gifts of the same kind.

BI, "In the hearts of all that are wise hearted I have put wisdom.

The danger of accomplishments

There are persons who doubt whether what are called “accomplishments,” whether in literature or in the fine arts, can be consistent with deep and practical seriousness of mind. I am not speaking of human learning; this also many men think inconsistent with simple uncorrupted faith. They suppose that learning must make a man proud. This is of course a great mistake; but of it I am not speaking, but of an over-jealousy of accomplishments, the elegant arts and studies, such as poetry, literary composition, painting, music, and the like; which are considered, not indeed to make a man proud, but to make him trifling. Of this opinion, how far it is true and how far not true, I am going to speak. Now, that the accomplishments I speak of have a tendency to make us trifling and unmanly, and therefore are to be viewed by each of us with suspicion as far as regards himself, I am ready to admit, and shall presently make clear. I allow that in matter of fact, refinement and luxury, elegance and effeminacy, go together. Antioch, the most polished, was the most voluptuous city of Asia. But the abuse of good things is no argument against the things themselves; mental cultivation may be a Divine gift, though it is abused. An acquaintance with the elegant arts may he a gift and a good, and intended to be an instrument of God’s glory, though numbers who have it are rendered

thereby indolent, luxurious, and feeble-minded. But the account of the building of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, from which the text is taken, is decisive on this point. How, then, is it that what in itself is of so excellent, and, I may say, Divine a nature, is yet so commonly perverted? Now the danger of an elegant and polite education is that it separates feeling and acting; it teaches us to think, speak, and be affected aright, without forcing us to practise what is right. I will take an illustration of this from the effect produced upon the mind by reading what is commonly called a romance or novel. Such works contain many good sentiments (I am taking the better sort of them); characters, too, are introduced, virtuous, noble, patient under suffering, and triumphing at length over misfortune. But it is all fiction; it does not exist out of a book which contains the beginning and end of it. We have nothing to do; we read, are affected, softened, or roused, and that is all; we cool again—nothing comes of it. Now observe the effect of this. God has made us feel in order that we may go on to act in consequence of feeling; if, then, we allow our feelings to be excited without acting upon them, we do mischief to the moral system within us, just as we might spoil a watch, or other piece of mechanism, by playing with the wheels of it. We weaken its springs, and they cease to act truly. For instance, we will say we have read again and again of the heroism of facing danger, and we have glowed with the thought of its nobleness. Now, suppose at length we actually come into trial, and, let us say, our feelings become roused, as often before, at the thought of boldly resisting temptations to cowardice, shall we therefore do our duty, quitting ourselves like men? rather, we are likely to talk loudly, and then run from the danger. And what is here instanced of fortitude is true in all cases of duty. The refinement which literature gives is that of thinking, feeling, knowing and speaking right, not of acting right; and thus, while it makes the manners amiable, and the conversation decorous and agreeable, it has no tendency to make the conduct, the practice of the man virtuous. The case is the same with the arts last alluded to—poetry and music. These are especially likely to make us unmanly, if we are not on our guard, as exciting emotions without insuring correspondent practice, and so destroying the connection between feeling and acting; for I here mean by unmanliness the inability to do with ourselves what we wish—the saying fine things and yet lying slothfully on our couch, as if we could not get up, though we ever so much wished it. And here I must notice something besides in elegant accomplishments, which goes to make us over-refined and fastidious, and falsely delicate. In books everything is made beautiful in its way. Pictures are drawn of complete virtue; little is said about failures, and little or nothing of the drudgery of ordinary, every-day obedience, which is neither poetical nor interesting. True faith teaches us to do numberless disagreeable things for Christ’s sake, to bear petty annoyances, which we find written down in no book. And further still, it must be observed, that the art of composing, which is a chief accomplishment, has in itself a tendency to make us artificial and insincere. For to be ever attending to the fitness and propriety of our words, is (or at least there is the risk of its being) a kind of acting; and knowing what can be said on both sides of a subject is a main step towards thinking the one side as good as the other. With these thoughts before us, it is necessary to look back to the Scripture instances which I began by adducing, to avoid the conclusion that accomplishments are positively dangerous and unworthy a Christian. But St. Luke and St. Paul show us that we may be sturdy workers in the Lord’s service, and bear our cross manfully, though we be adorned with all the learning of the Egyptians; or, rather, that the resources of literature and the graces of a cultivated mind may be made both a lawful source of enjoyment to the possessor, and a means of introducing and recommending the truth to others; while the history of the Tabernacle shows that all the cunning arts and precious possessions of this world may be consecrated to a religious service, and be made to speak of the world to come. I

conclude, then, with the following cautions, to which the foregoing remarks lead. First, we must avoid giving too much time to lighter occupations; and next, we must never allow ourselves to read works of fiction or poetry, or to interest ourselves in the fine arts for the mere sake of the things themselves; but keep in mind all along that we are Christians and accountable beings, who have fixed principles of right and wrong, by which all things must be tried, and have religious habits to be matured within them, towards which all things are to be made subservient. If we are in earnest we shall let nothing lightly pass by which may do us good, nor shall we dare to trifle with such sacred subjects as morality and religious duty. We shall apply all we read to ourselves; and this almost without intending to do so, from the mere sincerity and honesty of our desire to please God. We shall be suspicious of all such good thoughts and wishes, and we shall shrink from all such exhibitions of our principles as fall short of action. Of all such as abuse the decencies and elegancies of moral truth into a means of luxurious enjoyment, what would a prophet of God say? (Eze_33:30-32; 2Ti_4:2-4; 1Co_16:13). (J. H. Newman, D. D.)

The wise hearted ones

Who are the wise hearted ones?

1. They are those who prove themselves as having ability to do useful work. Work done, and well done, though it be in itself of trifling value, is the determination of wisdom.

2. The wise hearted are they who reach beyond present ability to perform. No true workman is satisfied to simply repeat his last job.

3. The wise hearted are they who, at Christ’s call, enter His kingdom, there to labour under the influence of the purest, strongest motives. (C. R. Seymour.)

Grace and genius

I. Natural gifts are often discovered by grace.

II. Natural gifts are directed by grace.

III. Natural gifts are heightened by grace.

IV. Natural gifts are sanctified by grace. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

The method of Providence

God would have everything built beautifully. What an image of beauty have we seen this Tabernacle to be through and through, flushed with colours we have never seen, and bright with lights that could not show themselves fully in the murkiness of this air! He would make us more beautiful than our dwelling-place. He would not have the house more valuable than the tenant. He did not mean the worshipper to be less than the Tabernacle which He set up for worship. Are we living the beautiful life—the life solemn with sweet harmonies, broad in its generous purpose, noble in the sublimity of its prayer, like God in the perpetual sacrifice of its life? Not only will God build everything beautifully; His purpose is to have everything built for religious uses. His meaning is

that the form shall help the thought, that images appealing to the eye shall also touch the imagination and graciously affect the whole spirit, and subdue into tender obedience and worship the soul and heart of man. What is the Tabernacle for? For worship. What is the meaning of it? It is a gate opening upon heaven. Why was it set up? To lift us nearer God. If we fail to seize these purposes, if we fail of magnifying and glorifying them so as to ennoble our own life in the process, we have never seen the Tabernacle. Herein is it for ever true that we may have a Bible but no revelation; a sermon but no Gospel; we may be in the church, yet not in the sanctuary; we may admire beauty, and yet live the life of the drunkard and the debauchee. In all His building—and God is always building—He qualifies every man for a particular work in connection with the edifice. The one man wants the other man. The work stands still till that other man comes in. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Various kinds of inspiration

Who can read these words as they ought to be read? How it makes ministers of God by the thousand! We have thought that Aaron was a religious man because of his clothing and because of many peculiarities which separated him from other men; but the Lord distinctly claims the artificer as another kind of Aaron. Who divides life into sacred and profane? Who introduces the element of meanness into human occupation and service? God claims all things for Himself. Who will say that the preacher is a religious man, but the artificer is a secular worker? But let us claim all true workers as inspired men. We know that there is an inspired art. The world knows it; instinctively, unconsciously, the world uncovers before it. There is an inspired poetry, make it of what measure you will. The great common heart knows it, says, “That is the true verse; how it rises, falls, plashes like a fountain, flows like a stream, breathes like a summer wind, speaks the thoughts we have long understood, but could never articulate!“ The great human heart says, “That is the voice Divine; that is the appeal of heaven.” Why should we say that inspiration is not given to all true workers, whether in gold or in thought, whether in song or in prayer, whether in the type or in the magic eloquence of the burning tongue? Let us enlarge life, and enlarge Providence, rather than contract it, and not, whilst praying to a God in the heavens, have no God in the heart. You would work better if you realized that God is the Teacher of the fingers, and the Guide of the hand. Labour is churched and glorified. Art turns its chiselled and flushed features towards its native heaven. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Gifts from God as well as graces

God gave the plan clearly, graphically, distinctly, to Moses; but it needed men raised up specially by the Spirit of God to execute the plan, and to give it practical development. And we learn from this fact that a gifted intellect is as much the creation of the Spirit of God as a regenerate heart. Gifts are from God as truly as graces; it needs the guidance of God’s good Spirit to enable a man “to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them; and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship“; just as it does to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. We thus see that God gives light to the intellect as well as grace to the heart; and we may, perhaps, from this learn a very humbling, but a very blessed truth—that the man with a gifted intellect is as much summoned to bow the knee, and to thank the Fountain and the Author of it, as the man that has a sanctified heart feels it his privilege to bow his knee, and to bless the Holy Spirit that gave it, for this his distinguishing grace and

mercy. (J. Cumming, D. D.)

Spiritual gifts

1. Prize them inestimably.

2. Covet them earnestly.

3. Seek for them diligently.

4. Ponder them frequently.

5. Wait for them patiently.

6. Expect them hopefully.

7. Receive them joyfully.

8. Enjoy them thankfully.

9. Improve them carefully.

10. Retain them watchfully.

11. Plead for them manfully.

12. Hold them dependently.

13. Grasp them eternally. (Biblical Museum.)

Genius and industry

A friend of Charles Dickens, a man who had given promise of a noble career as an author, but who, through indolence, had failed in doing any permanent work, called upon him one morning, and, after bewailing his ill-success, ended by sighing, “Ah, if I only were gifted with your genius!” Dickens, who had listened patiently to the complaint, exclaimed at once in answer, “Genius, sir! I do not know what you mean. I had no genius save the genius for hard work!” However his enthusiastic admirers may dispute this, certain it is that Dickens trusted to no such uncertain light as the fire of genius. Day in and day out, by hard work, he elaborated the plot, characters, and dialogue of his imperishable stories. Whole days he would spend to discover suitable localities, and then be able to give vividness to his description of them, while, sentence by sentence, his work, after apparent completion, was retouched and revised. The great law of labour makes no exception of the gifted or ignorant. Whatever the work may be, there can be no success in it without diligent, unceasing, persevering labour.

7 the tent of meeting, the ark of the covenant law with the atonement cover on it, and all the other

furnishings of the tent—

GILL, "The tabernacle of the congregation,.... That is, they had wisdom given to make that according to the pattern showed to Moses, and under the direction of the two above persons, to whom Moses communicated it; and from henceforward, in this and some following verses, mention is made of the various things wrought by these subordinate workmen; first the house, and then the furniture of it, as follows:

and the ark of the testimony, and the mercy seat that is thereupon, and all the furniture of the tabernacle; of that part of it called the holy of holies; the furniture of which was only the ark, the mercy seat over that, and the cherubim overshadowing that, where was the seat of the divine Majesty; this was properly his apartment, see Exo_25:10.

ELLICOTT, "(7-11) The enumeration of the holy objects follows the order of the instructions given concerning them (Exodus 25-30), except that the tabernacle itself is placed first, and the altar of incense mentioned in its natural position, together with the table of shewbread and the golden candlestick (Exodus 31:8).

PULPIT, "Exodus 31:7-11

Contain an enumeration of the various works already commanded to be made The same order is observed, except that here the tabernacle itself is placed first, and the altar of incense takes its natural position next to the candlestick.

8 the table and its articles, the pure gold lampstand and all its accessories, the altar of incense,

CLARKE, "The pure candlestick - Called so either because of the pure gold of which it was made, or the brightness and splendor of its workmanship, or of the light which it imparted in the tabernacle, as the purest, finest oil was always burnt in it.

GILL, "And the table and his furniture,.... The shewbread table, with its dishes, spoons, and bowls, Exo_25:23.

and the pure candlestick with all his furniture; called "pure", because made of pure gold, and was to be kept pure and clean by the priests, and in which pure oil olive was burnt, and gave a clear light; its furniture were its lamps, tongs, and snuff dishes, Exo_25:31.

and the altar of incense: made of shittim wood covered with gold, Exo_30:1.

BE�SO�, "Exodus 31:8. The pure candlestick — Bright, resplendent, being of pure gold, and always kept clean and bright, Exodus 29:37; Leviticus 24:4.

The same original word occurs Exodus 24:10, where the divine glory is compared to the body of heaven in its clearness or splendour.

9 the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, the basin with its stand—

CLARKE, "The altar of burnt-offering - See Clarke’s note on Exo_27:1.

The laver and his foot - The pedestal on which it stood.

GILL, "And the altar of burnt offering with all his furniture,.... Which was made of shittim wood covered with brass; its furniture were its pans, shovels, basins, &c. Exo_27:1.

and the laver and his foot; for the priests to wash their hands and feet at, Exo_30:18.

10 and also the woven garments, both the sacred garments for Aaron the priest and the garments for his sons when they serve as priests,

BAR�ES, "Exo_31:10

And the cloths of service - Rather, And the garments of office; that is, the distinguishing official garments of the high priest. The three kinds of dress mentioned in this verse appear to be the only ones which were unique to the sanctuary. They were:

(1) The richly adorned state robes of the high priest (see Exo. 28:6-38; Exo_39:1following).

(2) the “holy garments” of white linen for the high priest, worn on the most solemn occasion in the year (see Exo_28:39; Lev_16:4).

(3) the garments of white linen for all the priests, worn in their regular ministrations (see Exo_28:40-41).

CLARKE, "Clothes of service - Vestments for the ordinary work of their ministry; the holy garments - those which were peculiar to the high priest.

GILL, "And the clothes of service,.... Either those the priests ministered in in the time of service, and which they never wore but when in it, and so might with propriety be so called, and what they were the following words explain; or else these were clothes of blue, purple, and scarlet, and coverings of badgers' skins, in which the ark, the shewbread table, the candlestick, and the golden altar, and other instruments of the tabernacle were wrapped, as Aben Ezra observes, when the Israelites journeyed in the wilderness, see Num_4:5.

and the holy garments for Aaron the priest; the breastplate, ephod, and robe, the broidered coat, mitre, and girdle, Exo_28:4.

and the garments of his sons to minister in the priest's office; the bonnets, coats, girdles, and breeches, Exo_28:40.

BE�SO�, "Exodus 31:10. The clothes of service — Wherewith the ark, the table, the candlestick, and golden altar, were covered when the camp removed, �umbers 4:6.

COKE, "Verse 10

Exodus 31:10. And the clothes of service— From �umbers 4:6 it appears, that by the clothes of service are meant the covering of blue for the ark, &c. when the camp removed. Houbigant thinks, that hereby are meant all the curtains and coverings of the tabernacle, of whatever sort.

REFLECTIO�S.—The work was described in the former chapters: the workmen now are also divinely appointed; and God, who appoints the persons, qualifies them for the work. Learn, 1. When God has work to do, he will find instruments, and fit them for their employment. 2. All skill and excellence in every business is me gift of God, and should be acknowledged to his glory. 3. When we admire the instruments God makes use of, we must beware of ascribing too much to the man, and too little to his Master. 4. They who are employed in the service of the tabernacle or church of God, under a Divine call, may with comfort and confidence enter upon it. He who calls them to the work will support and own them in it.

ELLICOTT, "(10) The cloths of service.—Modern critics generally suppose the state robes of the high priest to be meant (Keil, Knobel, De Wette, Kalisch, Cook); but the Rabbinical interpreters understand the cloths in which the ark and other vessels of the sanctuary were wrapped when the camp was moved from place to place (see �umbers 4:6-13). These, like the cloths here spoken of (Exodus 39:1), were to be of blue, and purple, and scarlet; and it would be natural to distinguish them from the “holy garments,” as is done both here and also in Exodus 35:19; Exodus 39:1; Exodus 39:41. They had, however, not been previously mentioned in the directions. Perhaps the true explanation is, that under the words “cloths of service” (bigdey sĕrâd, or bigdeh hassĕrâd) are included both the garments of Aaron and also those of his sons, the two later clauses of the verse being exegetical of the first clause. In that case, we should translate: The robes of service, both the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and also the garments of his sons. Exodus 39:41 is decidedly favourable to this interpretation.

PULPIT, "Exodus 31:10

The cloths of service. Rather "the vestments of office'—i.e; the distinguishing vestments of the High Priest, which he alone was allowed to wear. These were the blue robe, the ephod, the girdle of the ephod, and the breast-plate (Exodus 28:6-35). The holy garments. The rest of the High Priest's dress—i.e; the linen drawers, the diapered tunic, the inner girdle and the mitre (Exodus 28:39, Exodus 28:43; Le Exodus 16:4), which constituted his whole apparel on the great day of atonement. The garments of his sons—i.e, the linen drawers, tunics, girdles, and caps, mentioned in Exodus 28:40, Exodus 28:42.

11 and the anointing oil and fragrant incense for the Holy Place. They are to make them just as I commanded you.”

CLARKE, "The anointing oil - See Clarke’s note on Exo_30:23.

Sweet incense - See on Exo_30:24 (note).

GILL, "And the anointing oil, and sweet incense for the holy place,.... Of the composition of both which, see Exo_30:23.

according to all that I have commanded thee shall they do: not only make all the said things, but make them exactly according to the form and pattern given to Moses, communicated to Bezaleel and Aholiab, whose business it was to see that all things were done by the workmen agreeably to it.

The Sabbath

12 Then the Lord said to Moses,

BAR�ES, "The penal law of the Sabbath. Exo_35:2-3. In the fourth commandment the injunction to observe the seventh day is addressed to the conscience of the people (see Exo_20:8 note): in this place, the object is to declare an infraction of the commandment to be a capital offence. The two passages stand in a relation to each other similar to that between Lev. 18, Lev. 19, and Lev. 20. It seems likely that the penal edict was especially introduced as a caution in reference to the construction of the tabernacle, lest the people, in their zeal to carry on the work, should be tempted to break the divine law for the observance of the day.

GILL, "And the Lord spake unto Moses,.... After he had described to him the place of worship, and appointed the priests that should minister in it, and ordered the making

of all things appertaining to it, and the workmen that should be concerned therein, he repeats the law of the sabbath, and puts in mind of the time of worship:

HE�RY, "Here is, I. A strict command for the sanctification of the sabbath day, Exo_31:13-17. The law of the sabbath had been given them before any other law, by was of preparation (Exo_16:23); it had been inserted in the body of the moral law, in the fourth commandment; it had been annexed to the judicial law (Exo_23:12); and here it is added to the first part of the ceremonial law, because the observance of the sabbath is indeed the hem and hedge of the whole law; where no conscience is made of that, farewell both godliness and honesty; for, in the moral law, it stands in the midst between the two tables. Some suggest that it comes in here upon another account. Orders were now given that a tabernacle should be set up and furnished for the service of God with all possible expedition; but lest they should think that the nature of the work, and the haste that was required, would justify them in working at it on sabbath days, that they might get it done the sooner, this caution is seasonably inserted, Verily, or nevertheless, my sabbaths you shall keep. Though they must hasten the work, yet they must not make more haste than good speed; they must not break the law of the sabbath in their haste: even tabernacle-work must give way to the sabbath-rest; so jealous is God for the honour of his sabbaths. Observe what is here said concerning the sabbath day.

JAMISO� 12-17, "Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep— The reason for the fresh inculcation of the fourth commandment at this particular period was, that the great ardor and eagerness, with which all classes betook themselves to the construction of the tabernacle, exposed them to the temptation of encroaching on the sanctity of the appointed day of rest. They might suppose that the erection of the tabernacle was a sacred work, and that it would be a high merit, an acceptable tribute, to prosecute the undertaking without the interruption of a day’s repose; and therefore the caution here given, at the commencement of the undertaking, was a seasonable admonition.

K&D 12-17, "(cf. Exo_35:2-3). God concludes by enforcing the observance of His Sabbaths in the most solemn manner, repeating the threat of death and extermination in the case of every transgressor. The repetition and further development of this command, which was included already in the decalogue, is quite in its proper place here, inasmuch as the thought might easily have occurred, that it was allowable to omit the keeping of the Sabbath, when the execution of so great a work in honour of Jehovah had been commanded. “My Sabbaths:” by these we are to understand the weekly Sabbaths, not the other sabbatical festivals, since the words which follow apply to the weekly Sabbath alone. This was “a sign between Jehovah and Israel for all generations, to know (i.e., by which Israel might learn) that it was Jehovah who sanctified them,” viz., by the sabbatical rest (see at Exo_20:11). It was therefore a holy thing for Israel (Exo_31:14), the desecration of which would be followed by the punishment of death, as a breach of the covenant. The kernel of the Sabbath commandment is repeated in Exo_31:15; the

seventh day of the week, however, is not simply designated a “Sabbath,” but ַׁשָ=תּון a“ ַׁשַ=תhigh Sabbath” (the repetition of the same word, or of an abstract form of the concrete noun, denoting the superlative; see Ges. §113, 2), and “holy to Jehovah” (see at Exo_16:23). For this reason Israel was to keep it in all future generations, i.e., to observe it as an eternal covenant (Exo_31:16), as in the case of circumcision, since it was to be a sign

for ever between Jehovah and the children of Israel (Eze_20:20). The eternal duration of this sign was involved in the signification of the sabbatical rest, which is pointed out in Exo_20:11, and reaches forward into eternity.

COFFMA�, "Verses 12-17RESTATEME�T OF THE SABBATH COMMA�DME�T

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily ye shall keep my sabbaths: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am Jehovah who sanctifieth you. Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: everyone that profaneth it shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done; but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to Jehovah; whosoever doeth any work on the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed."

Scholars have several different opinions as to why this repetition of the sabbath law should have occurred just here. Some think that it arose from the practical necessity of restraining the people from working on the tabernacle even on the sabbaths, which they might, in their enthusiasm, have been prone to do. Others believe that it was designed to single out and emphasize what they regard as the "chief commandment" of the Decalogue, that of keeping the sabbath; and still others suppose that it was to preclude any idea that might have tended toward the replacement of the sabbath law by the holy services of the tabernacle.

However, this information regarding the sabbath is not a mere repetition. As is so frequently the case in the Word of God, a given subject is returned to again and again, with new and pertinent information being supplied in each new mention of it; and the same thing is true here. Two facts of the utmost importance are here revealed for the first time: (1) that the sabbath day was a sign of the covenant between God and Israel; and (2) that the profanation of it was a capital offense to be punished by the execution of all violators! This was exactly the proper place for Moses to have included this information, because the established worship of God in the services of the tabernacle was about to be inaugurated; and, as the sabbath was to be a prominent and vital part of that worship, this placement of the instructions stressed it as being also of equal importance with the tabernacle rituals.

"Shall be cut off from among his people ..." Dummelow, and others, are of the opinion that this does not necessarily mean to be be put to death.[8] Certainly in later times, "to be cut off from among his people" referred to one's being cast out of the synagogue (See John 9), and there could have been other occasions when the same meaning must be allowed; however, here, the expression is used as a parallel

with "surely be put to death," and there can be little doubt that this rule was followed throughout the history of Israel. It will be remembered that Annas, some five or six of whose sons and sons-in-law exercised the office of the High Priest in the times of Christ, was deposed from his office by Tiberius Caesar in 14 A.D. for putting to death a young man for breaking the sabbath.[9] And, of course, there is the classical instance of it in �umbers 15:32. Fields stated that there is no difference in the meaning of the two expressions "cut off from his people" and "be put to death," as they are used here. "�evertheless, it appears plain that very few people were ever executed for breaking the sabbath. �ehemiah declared that the Jews went into captivity for not keeping the sabbath."[10] Still this law remained, and the Jews even threatened Jesus Christ with death for "breaking the sabbath" (according to their silly rules which they had imposed upon God's Word). See John 5:16-18. There is no way to agree with Honeycutt's declaration that, "There are no records of death penalties having been administered for sabbath violation."[11]

"It is a sign between me and the children of Israel ..." Up until this time, circumcision had been "the sign" of the covenant with Abraham; but, as Rawlinson pointed out, "Other ancient peoples had also adopted circumcision, with the result that circumcision was no longer a sufficiently distinguishing mark; hence, the giving of the sabbath."[12] It should be noted that there is no hint whatever of sabbath keeping having ever been observed by anyone other than Israelites in all history.

It is a gross error to equate God's "resting on the seventh day" of creation with what was commanded for Israel. God's mention of his resting on the "seventh day" was indeed tied theologically to the Jewish sabbath, but the connection is not that God rested on Saturday, but it is seen in the fact that, "even God rested on the seventh day of creation." How much more appropriate therefore is it that men should have rested on the "seventh day of the week!"

For a more complete discussion of the Sabbath Day, see under Exodus 16:30 and Exodus 20:8.

Jews still observe the sabbath. One of their rabbis has written:

The Sabbath is the sign, the identifying mark, of the Jew. Just as the sign on the door of a home indicates who lives inside, so the Sabbath is the sign marking the place where a Jew dwells. Likewise, the shop that is closed on the Sabbath is marked as a Jewish enterprise. But if, heaven forbid, that shop should be open on the Sabbath, the mark indicates the reverse.[13]

"For a perpetual covenant ..." The actual meaning of this is not "through all time to eternity," but it rather should be understood in a dispensational sense, "until Christ should come."

CO�STABLE, "Verses 12-1810. The sign of the Sabbath31:12-18

"As a sign of the �oahic covenant is the rainbow ( Genesis 9:13), and as the sign of the Abrahamic covenant is circumcision ( Genesis 17:11), the sign of the Mosaic covenant is the observance and celebration of the Sabbath day ( Exodus 31:13; Exodus 31:17)." [�ote: Youngblood, pp112-13. The sign of the �ew Covenant is the Lord"s Supper ( Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25).]

God intended this sign to teach Israel and the other nations that as redeemed people the Israelites had already entered into a measure of rest. They were partakers of God"s rest.

Observance of the Sabbath was unique to Israel. It distinguished Israel from all other nations. So important was its observance that the Israelite who failed to observe it died ( Exodus 31:15). This sign was to continue throughout all succeeding generations ( Exodus 31:13) as long as God continued to work through Israel as His primary instrument (cf. Romans 10:4; Hebrews 9:10).

"The analogy between God"s work of Creation and Israel"s construction of the tabernacle is made explicit by the reference to the Sabbath at the close of the narrative." [�ote: Sailhamer, The Pentateuch . . ., p309.]

Whereas God did not command Christians to observe the Sabbath, the Scriptures do teach the importance of periodic physical rest regardless of the dispensation in which we may live (cf. Mark 6:31; Mark 14:41; Revelation 6:11).

"We don"t have to be servants twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week." [�ote: John F. Alexander, "Sabbath Rest," The Other Side146 (�ovember1983):8. See Jeffrey Siker-Gieseler, "The Theology of the Sabbath in the Old Testament: A Canonical Approach," Studia Biblica et Theologica11:1 (April1981):5-20 , in which the author brought together and interpreted the references to the Sabbath in the Old Testament.]

This section concludes the record of what Moses received from God during the40 days and nights he was in the mountain that began in Exodus 25:1.

Moses wrote the instructions concerning the tabernacle so they parallel what he wrote about the Creation. �ote some of the similarities in the narratives. [�ote: Adapted from Sailhamer, The Pentateuch . . ., pp289-90 , 306 , 309.]

ELLICOTT, "(12-17) The worship of the tabernacle was so closely connected with Sabbatical observance (Leviticus 19:30), that no surprise can be felt at a recurrence to the subject in the present place. It was not only that there might be a danger of zealous men breaking the Sabbatical rest in their eagerness to hasten forward the work of construction now required of them. The re-enactment of the Law might serve to check this tendency if it existed; but clearly the present passage is not specially directed to so narrow an object. It is altogether general in its aim and teaching. It re-enacts the law of the Sabbath (1) under a new sanction; and (2) with

new light in its intention and value. Hitherto the Sabbath had been, in the main, a positive enactment intended to test obedience (Exodus 16:4); now it was elevated into a sacramental sign between God and His people (Exodus 31:13). Having become such a sign, it required to be guarded by a new sanction, and this was done by assigning the death-penalty to any infraction of the law of Sabbath observance (Exodus 31:14-15).

�ISBET, "SABBATH KEEPI�G‘And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily My Sabbaths ye shall keep,’ etc.Exodus 31:12-13From the moment in which He created man, God required that one day in seven should be consecrated to Himself; and however this requisition may have formed the basis for much that is peculiar in the Jewish economy, the requisition itself must belong to all ages.

I. The Fourth Commandment differs from every other in the Decalogue in that it is not the authoritative publication of a law which might have been ascertained by natural religion. It is a sign, high, clear, and beautiful as the rainbow, that God is not unmindful of this earth, and has made known to it His will, and watches over its history.

II. The keeping of a Sabbath was a sign or symbol by which the Israelites might know what God they worshipped, even a God that could sanctify His worshippers.

III. The Commandment decides the proportion of time that we are to devote to God. After every six days of labour there is to be a solemn rest.

IV. By keeping the Sabbath the Israelites acknowledged Jehovah as Creator, and commemorated their deliverance from Egypt. We do the same in keeping the Christian Sabbath. As amongst the Jews the Sabbath was made to fall on the day of their deliverance from Pharaoh, so amongst the Christians it should fall on the day when their redemption was completed. With the Jews the Sabbath was a sign that their God had vanquished the Egyptians, divided the Red Sea, and led the nation to Canaan; with us it is a sign that our God hath defeated Satan, cleft the waters of death, and opened a way to the heavenly Canaan.

Canon H. Melvill.Illustration

(1) ‘The rest-day gives us the time to take our bearings, and discover our latitude and longitude; to let the dazzle pass from our eyes, that we may see the eternal forms that rise majestically around our little life. To worship, to think, to pray, to help others, to hold converse with the great past and greater future, these ought to have a place in each Lord’s Day.’

(2) ‘That we now keep the first day rather than the last is in commemoration of the

resurrection of the Lord Jesus; and the practice of the Early Church, as evidenced in the Acts and the Epistles, is a certain indication of the Divine sanction for the exchange. Of old, men passed from work to rest, now we go forth from rest to work.’

(3) ‘Let preachers boldly declare that the Fourth Commandment still binds. The pulpit has given an uncertain sound in many places, and it has been given forth that the Fourth Commandment only applied to the Jews. But “the Sabbath was made for man,” Christ said, not for the Jews. We need a great deal more instruction on that point.

“Again, the whole principle of the Sabbath day has been misunderstood. People say that every day ought to be holy to the Lord, and so it should be; but six days a week we glorify God in work, and one day in rest.”’

PETT, "Verses 12-17The Sign of the Sabbath (Exodus 31:12-17).

The final response and mark of loyalty and worship is found in the newly established Sabbath (Exodus 16:23; Exodus 16:25-26; Exodus 16:29; Exodus 20:8-11; Exodus 23:10-13). This divided time up for Israel into periods of seven days, something unique in the ancient world. Time was usually measured in terms of the moon (moon periods of 28/29 days long) or the sun (in term of keeping the seasons in line). This measurement of time directly connected them with Yahweh and His activity. They were uniquely Yahweh’s people. Time would also later be divided up into seven year periods, the seventh year of such being a kind of Sabbath (Leviticus 25:1-7), and into ‘seven times seven’ periods which ended in the year of Yubile (Leviticus 25:8 ff). The ‘fiftieth year’ was not, however, the year that followed the forty-ninth year, for it commenced on the seventh month. It thus presumably covered the last half of the forty-ninth year and the first half of the following first year. It did not therefore break the sequence of sevens.

a Moses is to speak to the children of Israel saying that they must keep His Sabbathsb For this is a sign between Him and Israel throughout their generations, that they may know that He is Yahweh Who sanctifies themc They shall keep the Sabbath for it is holy to them. Whoever does any work in it will be cut off from among his peopled Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh is a day of solemn restd It is holy to Yahweh. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day will surely be put to deathc For this reason the children of Israel will keep the Sabbath throughout their generations for a perpetual covenantb It is a sign between Him and the children of Israel for evera For in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He ceased work and was refreshed.�ote that in ‘a’ the children of Israel are to keep Yahweh’s Sabbaths, and in the parallel it is because in six days He made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day

He ceased from work and was refreshed. In ‘b’ it is a sign between Him and the children of Israel throughout their generations, while in the parallel it is a sign between them for ever. In ‘c’ they are to keep the Sabbath because it is holy to them, and in the parallel they are to keep it throughout their generations for a perpetual covenant. In ‘d’ the stress is on ceasing work on the seventh day, while in the parallel it is holy so that whoever works on it will be put to death.

Exodus 31:12-13

‘And Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying, Truly you shall keep my sabbaths. For it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am Yahweh who sanctifies you.”The offering of incense on the incense altar was evidence of the people’s loyalty and devotion, the payment of the ransom on the numbering of Israel was a further mark of loyalty and we now come to the third mark of loyalty, the Sabbath. This has been recently established to act as a sign whereby all men may know that Israel are His people and loyally serve Him, and as a sign whereby they may themselves recognise that they are His and come to know Him more fully. Every time the Sabbath came round they would recognise that they had been set apart by God as His people and would by God’s grace come to know it fully in their hearts. And like the offering of the incense this was to be so through many generations.

The mention of the Sabbath here was especially apposite as the temptation might have been for the work to continue on the Sabbath because it was ‘God’s work’. But the warning is clear. �othing justifies the ignoring of the Sabbath because of its deep significance.

13 “Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy.

CLARKE, "My Sabbaths ye shall keep - See Clarke’s note on Gen_2:3. See Clarke’s note on Exo_20:8.

GILL, "Speak thou also unto the children of Israel,.... Notwithstanding all that has been said and ordered concerning making the tabernacle and all things belonging to it; yet this was not to be understood to the violation of the sabbath, or the neglect of that, in which no work was to be done, no, not any relating to the tabernacle and the vessels of it; and though that was to be made, and everything belonging to it, as soon as possible, yet the sabbath was to be observed, and not broken on that account; and this the people of Israel were told of:

saying; verily, or "nevertheless" (q):

my sabbaths ye shall keep not sabbaths of years, as the seventh year and the fiftieth year, but of weeks, expressed by the plural number, because there are many of them in course throughout the year, no less than fifty two; and so the apostle uses the same number, Col_2:16 and so do Heathen writers (r):

for it is a sign between me and you, throughout your generations; a token of the covenant between them, of his being their God and they his people in a peculiar sense; seeing they observed the same day as a day of rest now, on which he had rested at the finishing of the works of creation, which other nations of the world did not observe; of his sanctifying and separating them from all other people; for this was not a sign between him and other nations, but between him and the people of Israel only; and was to be observed throughout their ages, as long as their civil and church state lasted, but not through others:

that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you; had separated and distinguished them from the rest of the nations of the world; but if this law had been given to all nations, it could not have been a distinguishing sign of them from others; nor could it be known hereby that God had separated them to himself above all people; and this was done that it might be known, not only by them, for the word "ye" is not in the text, but by others, the nations of the world, as Jarchi; that they were a distinct people, having distinct laws from all others, and particularly this.

HE�RY, "1. The nature, meaning, and intention, of the sabbath, by the declaration of which God puts an honour upon it, and teaches us to value it. Divers things are here said of the sabbath. (1.) It is a sign between me and you (Exo_31:13), and again, Exo_31:17. The institution of the sabbath was a great instance of God's favour to them, and a sign that he had distinguished them from all other people; and their religious observance of the sabbath was a great instance of their duty and obedience to him. God, by sanctifying this day among them, let them know that he sanctified them, and set them apart for himself and his service; otherwise he would not have revealed to them his holy sabbaths, to be the support of religion among them. Or it may refer to the law concerning the sabbath, Keep my sabbaths, that you may know that I the Lord do sanctify you. Note, If God by his grace incline our hearts to keep the law of the fourth commandment, it will be an evidence of a good work wrought in us by his Spirit. If we sanctify God's day, it is a sign between him and us that he has sanctified our hearts: hence it is the character of the blessed man that he keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, Isa_56:2. The Jews, by observing one day in seven, after six days' labour, testified and declared that they worshipped the God who made the world in six days, and rested the seventh; and so distinguished themselves from other nations, who, having first lost the sabbath, which was instituted to be a memorial of the creation, by degrees lost the

knowledge of the Creator, and gave that honour to the creature which was due to him alone. (2.) It is holy unto you (Exo_31:14), that is, “It is designed for your benefit as well as for God's honour;” the sabbath was made for man. Or, “It shall be accounted holy by you, and shall so be observed, and you shall look upon it a sacrilege to profane it.” (3.) It is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord, Exo_31:15. It is separated from common use, and designed for the honour and service of God, and by the observance of it we are taught to rest from worldly pursuits and the service of the flesh, and to devote ourselves, and all we are, have, and can do, to God's glory. (4.) It was to be observed throughout their generations, in every age, for a perpetual covenant. Exo_31:16. This was to be one of the most lasting tokens of that covenant which was between God and Israel.

CALVI�, "13.Speak thou also unto the children of Israel. He inculcates the same things as before, with the addition of a few words, such as “for it is holiness unto you;” (337) by which expression he exhorts them to observe this rite as most sacred and inviolable, since by its neglect religion would fall (338) And therefore he denounces capital punishment against any who should work on that day. Hence, again, we gather the dignity and excellency of the mystery, when God deemed an apparently light transgression of it worthy of death. Still this was an act of by no means excusable contempt, to overthrow professedly, as it were, what God would have to be a mark of distinction between His people and heathen nations. The passages which follow have the same tendency, which it would have been superfluous to repeat, unless because the people were thus reminded that it was a matter of the utmost importance. By prohibiting them from lighting a fire, He anticipates all the glosses which they would have been ready enough to invent; for they would have alleged that if the pot had been put on the fire the day before, the Sabbath would not have been violated by lighting the fire. What, then, would have been more allowable than anything else God excludes, viz., that they should not employ themselves in the preparation of their food, or undertake any other earthly work, however venial. When He calls it a “perpetual” or eternal “covenant,” the Jews rest on it as a ground of their obstinacy, and wantonly rave against Christ as a covenant-breaker, because He abrogated the Sabbath. I will not contend with them as to the word גולם, gnolam, which sometimes means a long time, and not perpetuity: I will simply insist on the thing itself. Whatever was spoken of under the Law as eternal, I maintain to have had reference to the new state of things which came to pass at the coming of Christ; and thus the eternity of the Law must not be extended beyond the fullness of time, when the truth of its shadows was manifested, and God’s covenant assumed a different form. If the Jews cry out that what is perpetual, and what is temporary, are contraries to each other, we must deny it in various respects, since assuredly what was peculiar to the Law could not continue to exist beyond the day of Jesus Christ. Besides, the Sabbath, although its external observation is not now in use, still remains eternal in its reality, like circumcision. Thus the stability of both was best confirmed by their abrogation; since, if God now required the same of Christians, it would be putting a veil over the death and resurrection of His Son; and hence the more carefully the Jews persevere in the keeping the festival, the more do they derogate from its sanctity. But they calumniate us falsely, as if we disregarded the Sabbath; because there is nothing which more completely confirms its reality and substance than the abolition of its

external use. To this point also may my readers apply what I have written on Genesis 17:0, (339) lest I should weary them in vain by my prolixity; and again, in treating of the sacrifices, I have adverted to some things which relate to the same doctrine. When, in Exodus 34:0, God especially commands them to rest “in earing-time and harvest,” (340) it is not as if He would let loose the rein for the rest of the year; but He rather draws it tighter, since no necessity must interrupt this sacred observance. Else it might have seemed a just pretext, if, on account of continued rains, or other ungenial weather, ploughing should be difficult, husbandmen were to be released from the obligation of the law, lest their resting should have produced sterility. The same opinion might have prevailed as to the ingathering of the harvest, lest it should have been spoilt on the ground. God, however, allows of no dispensation; but the Sabbath is to be observed, though at the risk of general loss.

BE�SO�, "Exodus 31:13. Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep — This had been mentioned thrice before, Exodus 16:23; Exodus 20:8; Exodus 23:12; but seems here to be repeated lest they should think the sacred work enjoined in this chapter would warrant their breaking in upon the holy rest of that day. Wherefore the clause had better be translated, �evertheless my sabbaths shall ye keep; for \א ach is often an exceptive particle, and is so rendered here by Arias, Montanus, Le Clerc, Junius, and Tremellius. It is a sign between me and you — Some late commentators have quoted Poole here, as follows: “The sabbath is a five-fold sign; 1st, Commemorative of God’s creation and dominion over them and all things, to whom they hereby profess their subjection. 2d, Indicative, showing that they were made to be holy, and that their sanctification could be had from none but God, as it here follows and from the observation of God’s days and appointments. 3d, Distinctive, whereby they owned themselves to be the Lord’s peculiar people, by a religious keeping of those sabbaths, which the rest of the world grossly neglected, and profanely scoffed at. 4th, Prefigurative of that rest which Christ should purchase for them, namely, a rest from the burden of the ceremonial, and the curses and rigours of the moral law, as also from sin and the wrath of God for ever, Hebrews 4:5 th, Confirmative, both assuring them of God’s good will to them, and that, as he blessed the sabbath for their sakes, so he would bless them in the holy use of it, with temporal, spiritual, and everlasting blessings; and assuring God of their standing, and that they would stand to the covenant made between God and them. So that this was a mutual stipulation or ratification of the covenant of grace on both sides.” Certainly the institution of the sabbath was a great instance of God’s favour, and a sign that he had separated them from all other people; and their religious observance of it was a great instance of their duty to him. God, by sanctifying this day among them, let them know that he sanctified them, and set them apart for his service, otherwise he would not have revealed to them his holy sabbaths, to be the support of religion among them. The Jews, by observing one day in seven, after six days’ labour, testified that they worshipped the God that made the world in six days, and rested the seventh; and so distinguished themselves from other nations, who, having first lost the sabbath, the memorial of the creation, by degrees lost the knowledge of the Creator, and gave the creature the honour due to him alone.

COKE, "Verse 13

Exodus 31:13. Verily, my sabbaths ye shall keep— As the precept of observing the sabbath has been so strongly enjoined before, it seems reasonable to conclude, that the repetition in this place has reference only to the workmen, and the work of the tabernacle; which, the Lord here informs them, is not to break in upon their observation of that great and important duty: and, accordingly, he adds, Exodus 31:14 whosoever doth any work therein, (even of this sacred sort, for the furnishing of the tabernacle,) that soul shall be cut off from among his people. See also Exodus 31:15. Understanding the precept in this view, their version seems to be just, who would read, nevertheless my sabbaths ye shall keep, to make it known, that I, Jehovah, have sanctified you: i.e. "separated you from all the world to be my peculiar people."

For it is a sign between me and you— In Exodus 31:17 it is said, It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever, for in six days, &c. "The meaning of which," says Hallet, "seems plainly to be this: that, as the sabbath was appointed in memory of God's having finished the work of creation in six days, and of his having rested on the seventh; so the Jews, by observing this sabbath, did testify their belief in the Creator of heaven and earth; and profess themselves to be the servants and worshippers of the true God, in opposition to the idols who made not the heaven and earth: at the same time the idolatrous nation of Egypt, from which the Israelites were delivered, and the other idolatrous nations which lived around them, had renounced the worship of the true God, and so would not observe his sabbath. The observation of the sabbath, therefore, was a sign that men were not idolaters, but worshippers of the true God. As it was appointed at the beginning of the world, it was appointed for all mankind. And it would equally serve for a sign between God and any other nation, as between God and the Hebrews; provided any other nation had kept the sabbath, that other nation would hereby have been as much proved by this sign to be worshippers of the true God, and as much distinguished from their idolatrous neighbours, as the Hebrews hereby were. But the truth is, all other nations had forsaken the worship of God, and apostatized to idolatry; and only the Jewish nation adhered to him. To be a standing evidence that they did adhere to him, God ordered them to continue to observe the sabbath; from the observation whereof other nations were gone astray: the solemn worship of God on which day would more strongly be a sign that they were not idolaters, than their mere resting from their labours could be." See more in Hallet, vol. 3: p. 115. Poole observes, that "the sabbath was a five-fold sign: first, Commemorative, of God's creation of and dominion over the Israelites, and all other things; to whom they do hereby profess their subjection. 2nd, Indicative, shewing, that they were made to be holy; and that their sanctification can be had from none but God, as it here follows, and from the observation of his days and appointments. 3rdly, Distinctive, whereby they owned themselves to be the Lord's peculiar people, by a religious keeping of those sabbaths which the rest of the world grossly neglected and profanely scoffed at. 4thly, Prefigurative, of that rest which Christ should purchase for them; to wit, a rest from the burden of the ceremonial, and from the curses and rigours of the moral law; as also from sin, and the wrath of God for ever. See Hebrews 4:4-5." "And 5thly, Confirmative, both assuring them of God's good will towards them; and that, as he blessed the sabbath, so he would bless them in the holy use of it, with temporal,

spiritual, and everlasting blessings, as he declares in many places of Scripture: and assuring God of their standing to that covenant made between God and them; so that this was a mutual stipulation or ratification of the covenant of grace on both sides."

ELLICOTT, "(13) It is a sign between me and you.—Circumcision had been given as a covenant sign to Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 17:9-13); but its adoption by many of the heathen nations had rendered it no longer a distinguishing mark by which God’s people could be certainly known from others. Thus a new “sign” was needed. The observance of one day in seven as a day of holy rest became henceforth the distinguishing sign, and proved effectual. It was not likely to be adopted, and in point of fact was not adopted, by any of the heathen. We find it in the latest time of the Jewish nation still regarded as the special mark and badge of a Jew (Juv. Sat. vi. 159, 14:96; Mart. Epig. 4:4, 50:7, &c.).

EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO�ARY, "Exodus 31:13

If we measure things not as they were divinely intended, nor as they are in themselves, but as they are subjectively entertained, it might be a question whether the Scottish Sabbath was not for200 years a greater Christian Sacrament, a larger, more vital, and more influential fact in the Christianity of the country than the annual or sometimes semi-annual celebration of the Lord"s Supper, or the initiatory rite of Baptism, or both together.... We are born, on each Lord"s day morning, into a new climate, a new atmosphere; and in that new atmosphere (so to speak), by the law of a renovated nature, the lungs and heart of the Christian life should spontaneously and continuously drink in the vital air.

—W. E. Gladstone, Later Gleanings, pp342 f.

Where every day is not the Lord"s, the Sunday is His least of all.

—George Macdonald, Donal Grant, chap. VII.

There is a deep Christian instinct in England, an instinct which has come down to us through many generations, and for the last350 years at any rate, founded in a large measure on Puritan belief, fed by what may be called the "two Puritan Sacraments"—the Bible and Sunday.

—Father Dolling in The Pilot (10 �ov, 1900).

PULPIT, "THE PE�ALTY FOR �OT OBSERVI�G THE SABBATH. Various reasons have been given for this recurrence to the sanctity of the sabbath. Kurtz connects it with the giving of the two tables, in which "the law of the sabbath held a particularly prominent place." Kalisch and others view it rather as the sequel to the directions concerning the tabernacle, and as designed to teach "that the holy service in the tabernacle could not supersede the observance of the sabbath, but derived front that observance its true value." A third set of critics regard the recurrence to

the subject as purely practical—being intended to meet an immediate danger—that of the people, in their zeal to erect the tabernacle, setting sabbath observance at nought. (So Jarchi, Aben-Ezra, Clark, Rosenmuller, Canon Cook, and others.) It is to be observed, however, that the present passage is not a mere repetition. It adds to former notices (Exodus 20:8-11; Exodus 23:12) two new points:—

1. That the sabbath was to be a sign between God and Israel, a "distinguishing badge," a "sacramental bond" (Cook); and

2. That its desecration was to be punished with death (Exodus 31:15). These were supplementary points of so much importance as to furnish ample reason against their announcement being delayed.

Exodus 31:13

Verily. Rosenmuller suggests, "�evertheless." But there is no need for any change. It is a sign. Hitherto circumcision had been the only visible "sign" that the Israelites were under a special covenant with God—his people, bound to him by special ties (Genesis 17:9-14; Acts 7:8). The adoption of circumcision by the Egyptians and other nations (Herod. 2.104) had produced the effect that this "sign" was no longer distinguishing. It might be still" a sign of profession "; but it had ceased to be "a mark of difference "; and some other mark was therefore needed. Such the observance of the sabbath by entire abstinence from servile work became. �o other nation adopted it. It continued to Roman times the mark and badge of a Jew.(Juv. Sat. 6.159; 14.96). That ye may know, etc. By keeping the sabbath day as a day of holy rest the Israelites would know—i.e; would realise severally in their own per sons, that God was their sanctifier. Sanctification would be the fruit of their obedience.

14 “‘Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it is to be put to death; those who do any work on that day must be cut off from their people.

BAR�ES, "Exo_31:14

See Num_15:32-36. The distinction between the meaning of the two expressions, “to be cut off from the people”, and “to be put to death”, is here indicated. He who was cut off from the people had, by his offence, put himself out of the terms of the covenant, and was an outlaw. On such, and on such alone, when the offence was one which affected the well-being of the nation, as it was in this case, death could be inflicted by the public authority.

CLARKE, "Every one that defileth it - By any kind of idolatrous or profane worship.

Shall surely be put to death - The magistrates shall examine into the business, and if the accused be found guilty, he shall be stoned to death.

Shall be cut off - Because that person who could so far contemn the Sabbath, which was a sign to them of the rest which remained for the people of God, was of course an infidel, and should be cut off from all the privileges and expectations of an Israelite.

GILL, "Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore,.... Strictly observe it, according to the rules given concerning it:

for it is holy unto you; a day that was set apart of God for holy exercises, peculiarly on their account:

everyone that defileth it; by doing any servile work upon it, or not observing it in a religious way:

shall surely be put to death; by the hand of the civil magistrate; if the law of the Jewish sabbath is now in force, the sanction continues, and the violation of it ought to be punished by a judge with death:

for whosoever doeth any work therein; so much as to kindle a fire, and dress any food, by boiling or roasting, or any other way:

that soul shall be cut off from among his people; that is, shall die by the hand of the civil magistrate, it being but another phrase for being put to death; though the Jewish writers, particularly Jarchi, understand the former phrase, "put to death", as to be done by a civil magistrate, when there are witnesses and full proof of the case; but this of "cutting off" by the hand of God, by immediate punishment from heaven, when it was done secretly, and there was no proof to be made of it.

HE�RY, "2. The law of the sabbath. They must keep it (Exo_31:13, Exo_31:14, Exo_31:16), keep it as a treasure, as a trust, observe it and preserve it, keep it from polluting it, keep it up as a sign between God and them, keep it and never part with it. The Gentiles had anniversary-feasts, to the honour of their gods; but it was peculiar to the Jews to have a weekly festival; this therefore they must carefully observe.

4. The penalty to be inflicted for the breach of this law: “Every one that defileth the sabbath, by doing any work therein but works of piety and mercy, shall be cut off from among his people (Exo_31:14); he shall surely be put to death. Exo_31:15. The magistrate must cut him off the sword of justice if the crime can be proved; if it cannot, or if the magistrate be remiss, and do not do his duty, God will take the work into his

own hands, and cut him off by a stroke from heaven, and his family shall be rooted out of Israel.” Note, The contempt and profanation of the sabbath day is an iniquity to be punished by the judges; and, if men do not punish it, God will, here or hereafter, unless it be repented of.

BE�SO�, "Verses 14-16Exodus 31:14-16. It is holy unto you — That is, it is designed for your benefit as well as for God’s honour; it shall be accounted holy by you. It is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord — It is separated from common use to the service of God; and by the observance of it we are taught to rest from worldly pursuits, and devote ourselves, and all we are, have, and can do, to God’s glory. It was to be observed throughout their generations, in every age, for a perpetual covenant — This was to be one of the most lasting tokens of the covenant between God and Israel.

ELLICOTT, "(14) Every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death.—This is a new enactment, and must be regarded in conjunction with the new dignity attached to Sabbath observance by its having become the special covenant sign between God and His people. The Sabbath-breaker now threw himself out of covenant with God, and not only so, but did what in him lay to throw the whole people out of covenant. His guilt was therefore great, and the assignment to it of the death-penalty is in no way surprising; rather, it is in accordance with the general spirit of the code (see Exodus 21:16-17; Exodus 21:29; Exodus 22:18-20, &c.). When the occasion arose, there was no hesitation in carrying the law out (�umbers 15:32-35).

Cut off.—Or, separated, set apart from. His act at once cast him out from the number of God’s people, made him an outlaw, ipso facto excommunicated him.

PETT, "Exodus 31:14-15

“You shall therefore keep the sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it will surely be put to death. For whoever does any work in it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to Yahweh. Whoever does any work on the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.”The importance and solemnity of the sabbath is stressed. �o work at all must be done on it (other than the minimum necessary to ensure the wellbeing of their flocks and herds). It is a holy day, and to work on it would profane it. For it is a reminder of God’s rest in creation (Exodus 31:17). Thus it applied to all who lived among His people. The complete ban was a boon for all hired workers and bondmen. Even they could not work on the sabbath, and no ingenuity of man could get around it. It was a total ban. And it was a sign that Israel were Yahweh’s people. It was a sign of the covenant, of which it was a part, and of their observance of it. And all who were within that covenant were promised that they would find rest.

“A sabbath of solemn rest.” It was a reminder of the rest He was going to give them in Canaan (Deuteronomy 12:9-10; Deuteronomy 25:19), and of the eternal rest that

He will give to His own (Hebrews 4:1; Hebrews 4:3; Hebrews 4:9-10).

The warning of death for breaching the Sabbath was an indication that it was a new ordinance, which was why it had to be so solemnly enforced (compare Genesis 17:14). And the reason for the severe penalty was that a deliberate breaching of the Sabbath would be a deliberate rejection of the covenant, and thus if Israel did not act to punish it they would be seen as participating in the rejection of the covenant.

PULPIT, "Every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death. To defile the sabbath was to do any unnecessary servile work upon it. Works of mercy, works of necessity, and works connected with religious observance were not prohibited. (See Matthew 12:1-7; 10-12.) The penalty of death for breaking the sabbath seems to moderns over-severe; but the erection of sabbath-observance into the special sacramental sign that Israel was in covenant with God made non-observance an offence of the gravest character. The man who broke the sabbath destroyed, so far as in him lay, the entire covenant between God and his people—not only broke it, but annulled it, and threw Israel out of covenant. Hence, when the sin was committed, no hesitation was felt in carrying out the law. (See �umbers 15:32-36.)

15 For six days work is to be done, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day is to be put to death.

GILL, "Six days may work be done;.... Allowed to be done by an Israelite, if he would; for this is not a command to work, but a permission or grant to do it; and therefore, seeing they had so many days granted them for their use, it could not be thought hard and unreasonable that God should claim one day in seven for his own use and service, and oblige them to refrain from work on it:

but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest; from worldly labour, and was typical of spiritual rest here, and eternal rest hereafter:

holy to the Lord; separated from other days, and entirely devoted to the worship and

service of God, and to be kept holy to the Lord in all holy and religious exercises, as hearing and reading the word, praying, praising, &c.

whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death; the Targum of Jonathan adds, by casting stones, and so we find that the first transgressor of this law we read of was stoned to death, Num_15:35.

ELLICOTT, "(15) Six days.—Comp. Exodus 20:9.

The sabbath of rest.—Rather, a sabbath of rest, or a complete rest. The repetition (sabbath sabbâthôn) gives an idea of completeness.

PULPIT, "The sabbath of rest. Rather, "a sabbath." There were other sabbaths besides that of the seventh day (Exodus 23:11; Le Exodus 25:2-12; etc.). By the expression, "a sabbath of rest"—literally, "a rest of resting"—the idea of completeness is given. Perhaps the best translation would be—"in the seventh is complete rest."

16 The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant.

CLARKE, "A perpetual covenant - Because it is a sign of this future rest and blessedness, therefore the religious observance of it must be perpetually kept up. The type must continue in force till the antitype come.

GILL, "Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath,.... On whom the sabbath of the seventh day was only enjoined, as well as that of the seventh and of the fiftieth years, being all ceremonial and shadowy:

to observe the sabbath throughout their generations; so long as the Mosaic dispensation lasted, and their civil polity and church state continued, even until the Messiah came, when all those Jewish shadows, rites, and ceremonies, fled away and disappeared:

for a perpetual covenant; just in the same sense as circumcision was, Gen_17:13.

PETT, "Exodus 31:16-17

“For this reason the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever. For in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and took breath.”So this was the reason why His people should keep the Sabbath into the distant future. Because it was the sign of God’s perpetual covenant with them as declared at Sinai. As the rainbow was a reminder of God’s covenant with the world through �oah (Genesis 9:12-17), and as circumcision was the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham and his wider family (Genesis 17:11), so the Sabbath was a sign of God’s covenant recently made with Israel. And by observing the Sabbath they were giving the continual sign that they had accepted that covenant and were maintaining their special relationship with God for ever. And it was a mutual sign, for as they were to rest on the Sabbath day, so He also had rested on the Sabbath day. Thus their resting on it demonstrated their new special relationship with their Creator. They were following in His footsteps.

“For in six yom Yahweh made heaven and earth.” The revealed pattern of creation (Genesis 1) has been over six God-periods, followed by rest. This was to be the pattern of Israel’s way of living, continual periods of divine fulfilment.

“He rested and took breath.” This anthropomorphism is rather expressing what benefit they will receive from the Sabbath day. All knew that when someone ceased work and rested, they were refreshed (compare Exodus 23:12). They were able to take breath on the Sabbath, just as Yahweh had done after creation.

This idiom has passed over into English. If we want to stop someone from some hectic activity we ask, ‘when are you going to take a breather?’ What we simply mean is ‘when are you going to stop?’.

PULPIT, "For a perpetual covenant. The sabbath is itself a covenant—i.e; a part of the covenant between God and Israel (Exodus 24:4)—and it is, also, a sign of covenant—i.e; a perceptible indication that the nation has entered into a special agreement with God, and undertaken the observance of special laws.

17 It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested

and was refreshed.’”

BAR�ES, "Exo_31:17

Was refreshed - Literally, “he took breath”. Compare Exo_23:12; 2Sa_16:14. The application of the word to the Creator, which occurs nowhere else, is remarkable.

CLARKE, "Rested, and was refreshed - God, in condescension to human weakness, applies to himself here what belongs to man. If a man religiously rests on the Sabbath, both his body and soul shall be refreshed; he shall acquire new light and life.

GILL, "It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever,.... In like sense as the land of Canaan was given them for an everlasting possession; and the covenant of circumcision, and the ordinance of the passover, and the fast on the day of atonement, were for ever; that is, unto the end of the Jewish world and state, at the coming of Christ, when a new world and state of things began, see Gen_17:8.

for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed; which is to be understood figuratively after the manner of men, who ceasing from toil and labour find rest and refreshment; but not really and properly, for as not labour, and weariness, and fatigue, so neither rest nor refreshment can be properly said of God; but this denotes his cessation from the works of creation, though not of providence, and of the delight and pleasure he takes in a view of them; this is observed, not as the foundation of this law, and the reason of its being made, but as an illustration of it, and as an argument, showing the reasonableness of it, and the similarity of it with what God himself had done, and therefore the enjoining of it could not reasonably be objected to. See Gill on Exo_20:11.

HE�RY, "The reason of the sabbath; for God's laws are not only backed with the highest authority, but supported with the best reason. God's own example is the great reason, Exo_31:17. As the work of creation is worthy to be thus commemorated, so the great Creator is worthy to be thus imitated, by a holy rest, the seventh day, after six days' labour, especially since we hope, in further conformity to the same example, shortly to rest with him from all our labours.

BE�SO�, "Exodus 31:17. On the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed — And, as the work of creation is worthy to be thus commemorated, so the great Creator is worthy to be imitated by a holy rest on the seventh day. The expression, was refreshed, is spoken after the manner of men. It seems to signify that delight and complacency with which God surveyed all his works, and pronounced them good, Genesis 1:31. Of this divine pleasure we may form some faint idea, by comparing it

to that solace and refreshment which a benevolent mind enjoys upon bringing into execution some noble and arduous, some generous and well concerted plan for advancing the glory of God and good of mankind.

COKE, "Verse 17Exodus 31:17. And was refreshed— The original word signifies, primarily, to respire, take breath, and so to be refreshed; and can only be applied to, or understood of God, more humano (after the manner of men), just as resting is applied to him: see the note on Genesis 2:2 and it perhaps would be better rendered, and ceased from his work. Accordingly the LXX have it επαυσατο, and Houbigant requievit.

REFLECTIO�S.—�ext to the repeated warnings against idolatry, we find no injunctions so frequent as those which regard the sabbath. These indeed have the most immediate connexion with each other, nothing being so effectual to turn them from false gods as the strict and religious observance of that day which was devoted to the worship of the true God. And as it was the means of sanctifying them, it has still the same gracious tendency to us; nor does any thing conduce more to the sanctification of our hearts and lives, than the careful observance of this holy day: whilst, on the contrary, the neglect of it is the most evident proof of a mind estranged from God, and an inlet to every abomination which naturally flows from forgetfulness of him. The breach of the sabbath was, among the Jews, punished with death: our laws too make it penal; and many who have been brought to an ignominious death have confessed this to be the beginning of their ruin. But though men elude human penalties, and with impunity continue in pleasure, business, idleness, gaming, the service of their lusts, and indulgence of their appetites, to profane these sacred hours: the time approaches when a judge shall sit upon the throne, with whom there is no respect of persons; when every sabbath-breaker will find, to his unutterable sorrow, that the wages of his sin is everlasting death.

ELLICOTT, "17) For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth.—Whatever other grounds there were for Sabbath observance, this idea always lay at its root. Man was through it to be made like unto his Maker—to have from time to time a rest from his labours, as God had had (Genesis 2:2-3)—and thereby to realise the blessedness of that final rest which he may be sure “remaineth for the people of God.”

PULPIT, "It is a sign. See above, Exodus 31:13. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth. See the comment on Exodus 20:11. And was refreshed. Literally," and took breath." The metaphor is a bold one, but not bolder than others which occur in holy scripture (Psalms 44:23; Psalms 78:65). It does but carry out a little further the idea implied in God's "resting." We cannot speak of any of God's acts or attributes without anthropomorphisms.

18 When the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant law, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.

BAR�ES, "Two tables of testimony - See Exo_25:16; Exo_32:15.

The tables of stone which represented the covenant between Yahweh and His people, and which, when covered with the mercy-seat were to give the sanctuary its significance, are now delivered to Moses in accordance with the promise in Exo_24:12.

The history of what relates to the construction of the sanctuary is here interrupted, and is taken up again in Exo_35:1.

CLARKE, "When he had made an end of communing -When the forty days and forty nights were ended.

Two tables of testimony - See Clarke’s note on Exo_34:1. Tables of stone - That the record might be lasting, because it was a testimony that referred to future generations, and therefore the materials should be durable.

Written with the finger of God - All the letters cut by God himself. Dr. Winder, in his History of Knowledge, thinks it probable that this was the first writing in alphabetical characters ever exhibited to the world, though there might have been marks or hieroglyphics cut on wood, stone, etc., before this time; see Exo_17:14. That these tables were written, not by the commandment but by the power of God himself, the following passages seem to prove: “And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mountain, and be thou there; and I will give thee tables of stone Which I Have Written, that thou mayest teach them;” Exo_24:12. “And he gave unto Moses, upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, Written With The Finger Of God;” Exo_31:18. “And Moses went down from the mount, and the two tables of testimony were in his hand; the tables were Written on both their sides. And the tables were The Work Of God, and the Writing Was The Writing Of God, graven upon the tables;” Exo_32:15, Exo_32:16. “These words [the ten commandments] the Lord spake in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and he added no more, But He Wrote Them on two tables of stone;” Deu_5:22. It is evident therefore that this writing was properly and literally the writing of God himself. God wrote now on tables of stone what he had originally written on the heart of man, and in mercy he placed that before his eyes which by sin had been obliterated from his soul; and by this he shows us what, by the Spirit of Christ, must be rewritten in the mind, 2Co_3:3; and this is according to the covenant which God long before promised to

make with mankind, Jer_31:33. See also what is said on this subject, Exo_20:1 (note), Exo_34:1 (note), and Exo_17:14 (note).

“No time,” says Dr. A. Bayley, “seems so proper from whence to date the introduction of letters among the Hebrews as this, for after this period we find continual mention of letters, reading, and writing, in the now proper sense of those words. See Deu_27:8;

Deu_31:9. Moses, it is said, επαιδευθη, was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians -

in all the learning they possessed; but it is manifest that he had not learned of them any method of writing, otherwise there had been no want of God’s act and assistance in writing the two tables of the law, no need of a miraculous writing. Had Moses known this art, the Lord might have said to him, as he does often afterwards, Write thou these words; Exo_34:27. Write on the stones the words of this law; Deu_27:3. Write you this song for you; Deu_31:19. Perhaps it may be said, God’s writing the law gave it a sanction. True; but why might it not also teach the first use of letters, unless it can be proved that they were in use prior to this transaction? It might be thought too much to assert that letters no more than language were a natural discovery; that it was impossible for man to have invented writing, and that he did not invent it: yet this may appear really the case from the following reflections: -

1. Reason may show us how near to an impossibility it was that a just and proper number of convenient characters for the sounds in language should naturally be hit upon by any man, for whom it was easy to imitate and vary, but not to invent.

2. From evidence of the Mosaic history, it appears that the introduction of writing among the Hebrews was not from man, but God.

3. There are no evident vestiges of letters subsisting among other nations till after the delivery of the law at Mount Sinai; nor then, among some, till very late.”

GILL, "And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him on Mount Sinai,.... After all those laws, orders, and instructions before related, which having done, he ceased to converse with him any longer in that manner he had, and at parting gave him

two tables of testimony; the two tables of the law, which is a testimony of the will of God, and contained the duty of the Israelites both towards God and man, and are reducible to these two, love to God, and love to our neighbour: five of the commands of the decalogue were written on one table, and five on the other; or it may be rather four on one table, the first being the largest, and containing the duty owing to God, and six on the other, which regard the duty of men one to another; so Orpheus the Heathen poet,

speaking of the law of Moses, calls it διπλακα�θεσµον (s). "Tables of stone"; the Targum of

Jonathan will have them to be of the sapphire stone, from the throne of glory; the paraphrast seems to have respect to Exo_24:10 and, with as little appearance of truth, says their weight was forty seahs; it is more probable they were of marble stone, of which there were great quantities in Mount Sinai. Dr. Shaw says (t) that part of Mount Sinai, which lies to the westward of the plain of Rephidim, consists of a hard reddish marble like "porphyry", but is distinguished from it by the representations of little trees and bushes, which are dispersed all over it. The naturalists call this sort of marble "embuscatum", or "bushy marble"; some think Sinai had its name from thence (u). This may denote the firmness, stability, and duration of the law, not as in the hands of Moses,

from which these tables were cast and broke, but as in the hands of Christ, and laid up in him the ark of the covenant, the fulfilling end of the law for righteousness: and it may also figure the hardness of man's heart, which is destitute of spiritual life, obdurate and impenitent, stupid, senseless and ignorant, stubborn and inflexible, and not subject to the law of God, and on which no impressions can be made but by the power and grace of God:

written with the finger of God: by God himself, and not by an angel, or by any creature or instrument: and it is by the finger of God, the Spirit, grace, and power of God, that the laws of God are put into the inward part, and written on the heart, to which the apostle refers, 2Co_3:3. This account is given by way of transition to what is recorded in the next chapter.

HE�RY, " The delivering of the two tables of testimony to Moses. God had promised him these tables when he called him up into the mount (Exo_24:12), and now, when he was sending him down, he delivered them to him, to be carefully and honourably deposited in the ark, Exo_31:18. 1. The ten commandments which God had spoken upon mount Sinai in the hearing of all the people were now written, in perpetuam rei memoriam - for a perpetual memorial, because that which is written remains. 2. They were written in tables of stone, prepared, not by Moses, as it should seem (for it is intimated, Exo_24:12, that he found them ready written when he went up to the mount), but, as some think, by the ministry of angels. The law was written in tables of stone, to denote the perpetual duration of it (what can be supposed to last longer than that which is written in stone, and laid up?), to denote likewise the hardness of our hearts; one might more easily write in stone than write any thing that is good in our corrupt and sinful hearts. 3. They were written with the finger of God, that is, by his will and power immediately, without the use of any instrument. It is God only that can write his law in the heart; he gives a heart of flesh, and then, by his Spirit, which is the finger of God, he writes his will in the fleshly tables of the heart, 2Co_3:3. 4. They were written in two tables, being designed to direct us in our duty both towards God and towards man. 5. They are called tables of testimony, because this written law testified both the will of God concerning them and his good-will towards them, and would be a testimony against them if they were disobedient. 6. They were delivered to Moses, probably with a charge, before he laid them up in the ark, to show them publicly, that they might be seen and read of all men, and so what they had heard with the hearing of the ear might now be brought to their remembrance. Thus the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

JAMISO�, "tables of stone, written with the finger of God— containing the ten commandments (Exo_24:12), called “tables of testimony,” because God testified His will in them.

K&D, "When Moses had received all the instructions respecting the sanctuary to be erected, Jehovah gave him the two tables of testimony-tables of stone, upon which the decalogue was written with the finger of God. It was to receive these tables that he had been called up the mountain (Exo_24:12). According to Exo_32:16, the tables themselves, as well as the writing, were the work of God; and the writing was engraved

upon them (ָחרּות from ָחַרת = χαράττειν), and the tables were written on both their sides (Exo_32:15). Both the choice of stone as the material for the tables, and the fact that the writing was engraved, were intended to indicate the imperishable duration of these words of God. The divine origin of the tables, as well as of the writing, corresponded to the direct proclamation of the ten words to the people from the summit of the mountain by the mouth of God. As this divine promulgation was a sufficient proof that they were the immediate word of God, unchanged by the mouth and speech of man, so the writing of God was intended to secure their preservation in Israel as a holy and inviolable thing. The writing itself was not a greater miracle than others, by which God has proved Himself to be the Lord of nature, to whom all things that He has created are subservient for the establishment and completion of His kingdom upon earth; and it can easily be conceived of without the anthropomorphic supposition of a material finger being possessed by God. Nothing is said about the dimensions of the tables: at the same time, we can hardly imagine them to have been as large as the inside of the ark; for stone slab 2 1/2 cubits long and 1 1/2 cubits broad, which must necessarily have been some inches in thickness to prevent their breaking in the hand, would have required the strength of Samson to enable Moses to carry them down the mountain “in his hand” (Exo_32:15), or even “in his two hands” (Deu_9:15, Deu_9:17). But if we suppose them to have been smaller than this, say at the most a cubit and a half long and one cubit broad, there would have been plenty of room on the four sides for the 172 words contained in the decalogue, with its threats and promises (Ex 20:2-17), without the writing being excessively small.

BI, "Written with the finger of God.

God’s writing

It is said of these tables that they “were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.” Some infidels have carped at this; and I must say it does seem to me as if it were not human finger, or human stylus, or pen, but God Himself that engraved it; but why should it be thought impossible for God to engrave upon stone? Have we not discovered that the lightning can carry our messages—that the lightning let go at London can print at Dover, as has been more recently shown—is it not found that the very rays of light themselves can engrave the most exquisite and intricate imagery; and should it be thought strange, then, that God should Himself engrave upon stone the Ten Commandments? The fact is, the higher we rise in scientific knowledge, the more we see how true this Book is, how worthy of God to write it, how dutiful in man to believe, and bless Him and rejoice in Him. (J. Cumming, D.D.).

CALVI�, "18And he gave unto Moses. It must be observed, that, after the voice of God had been heard from the midst of the fire, and He had delivered the Ten Commandments, and the form of the tabernacle had been described, and the work had been already finished by the artificers, though its dedication had not yet taken place, Moses was again withdrawn from the sight and intercourse of men, that he might be taught apart by himself to be a faithful interpreter of the Law. For although God had briefly comprised in the Ten Commandments the sum of His doctrine, which might suffice for the rule of a pious and righteous life, still a clearer exposition was needed, such as Moses afterwards added. With this object he was

taken up into the sanctuary (adytum) of heaven, as it were, in order that he might familiarly learn all things that concerned the full and complete understanding of the Ten Commandments, since he could never have attained their genuine meaning if God had not been his Master and Teacher. Hence we gather that he wrote his five books not only under the guidance of the Spirit of God, but as God Himself had suggested them, speaking to him out of His own mouth. Wherefore he observed silence for forty days, that he might afterwards freely speak by the authority of God. Thus ought all true pastors of the Church to be disciples, so as to teach nothing but what they have received. But although God might in a moment have fully perfected His servant, yet, in order more surely to evince that he advanced nothing which did not proceed from the school of heaven, he was separated for forty days from the human race, so that the Israelites might henceforth look up to him as to an angel sent from heaven; for there could be no savour of earth about him who had thus lived with God, without meat and drink, or any other means of nourishment, and divested of all infirmity of the flesh.

Finally, the Ten Commandments were written on two tables, so that they might never be lost. I have elsewhere stated why they were divided into two tables, viz., because they consist of two parts, the first of which is the rule of piety, whilst the second prescribes how we must live righteously, innocently, and chastely with men. Thus the worship of God comes first in order, and then the duties of charity follow. The tables were of stone, inasmuch as it is usual for enduring monuments to be engraven on brass, or stones. That they were “written with the finger of God,” we must understand to mean that the characters were formed without the hand or skill of men, by the secret virtue of God; nor is it a matter of wonder that a writing should have suddenly been brought into existence at the same will (nutu) of God, whereby the waste and shapeless materials of the world, which they call chaos, were changed so as to be resplendent with astonishing elegance and beauty. This expression, however, is metaphorical, whereby what is only applicable to men is figuratively spoken of God; for God is not corporeal so as to write with His finger; and for Him to act is only to command; as it is said in the Psalms,

“He spake, and all things were made; he commanded, and they were created.” (Psalms 33:9.)

Many approve of the allegory, that the Law was written by the Spirit of God on stones, because the hardness of our heart does not receive it without the grace of regeneration; but we must rather hold to the antithesis of Paul, wherein he shews that the Gospel differs from the Law in this respect, because it is written on fleshy hearts, subdued unto obedience, (2 Corinthians 3:3;) and indeed it is by no means fitting that we should trifle in such conceits as this, when the simple intention of God is abundantly manifest, viz., that the Law was registered upon stones, in order that the perpetuity of its doctrine should be maintained in all ages.

BE�SO�, "Exodus 31:18. He gave unto Moses the two tables of testimony — After his forty days’ stay upon the mount, God dismissed him, giving him the ten articles of the moral law, written upon two tables of stone, to be delivered to the people, and

to be laid up in the ark, as the standing record of the divine will relating to the principal branches of their duty. In the most ancient times, it must be observed, laws were wont to be engraven upon tables of brass, marble, wood, &c. These tables of stone, it appears, were not prepared by Moses, but probably by the ministry of angels. They were written with the finger of God — That is, by his will and power immediately, without the use of any instrument. They were written in two tables, being designed to direct us in our duty toward God and toward man. They were called tables of testimony, because this written law testified the will of God concerning them, and would be a testimony against them, if they were disobedient.

COFFMA�, ""And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God."

It was for the purpose of receiving these tables that God had called Moses up into the mountain, as revealed in Exodus 24:12, and thus this is a fulfillment of the promise of God made to Moses at that time. The size of these tables concerns some scholars, but there is no way to determine exactly the size of them, other than by the necessary deductions from the fact of Moses' having been able to carry them in his hands, and from the further truth that they were designed to repose within the ark of the covenant, yet with enough room left for the pot of manna and the rod which budded. As for still another "problem," did God actually inscribe the tablets, or did Moses do so at God's direction? �o matter how it was done, the eternal truth can be no better expressed than in the words here recorded: "TABLES OF STO�E; WRITTE� WITH THE FI�GER OF GOD!" We do not believe that any comment is needed.

COKE, "Exodus 31:18. Two tables of testimony— So named for the reason given, ch. Exodus 25:21. These tables were of stone; and it was usual, in the most ancient times, to engrave laws on tables of marble, wood, brass, &c. The ten commandments upon these tables are said to have been written with the finger of God: so the heavens are said to be the work of God's fingers, Psalms 8:3 while in the parallel place, Psalms 33:6 it is said, that the heavens were made by the word of the Lord; by which one would conceive, that the immediate agency of God was implied without any subordinate ministration. See ch. Exodus 32:16. Others, however, conceive, that the ministration of angels was used; but there are matters of too abstruse a nature for us to understand perfectly at present. Bishop Patrick very judiciously observes, that "many Pagan nations boasted of deriving their laws immediately from God. Thus the Brachmans report in their histories, that the book of their law (which they call Caster) was delivered by God to Bremavius upon a mount in a cloud; and that God gave also another book of laws to Brammon in the first age of the world. The Persians say the same of those of Zoroaster; and the Getes of Xamolxis. �ay, the Brachmans have a Decalogue like this of Moses, and accurate interpretations of it, in which, they say, there is this prophecy, that one day there shall be one law alone throughout the world. This evidently shews how well the world was anciently acquainted with these books of Moses, and what a high esteem they had for them."

REFLECTIO�S.—Moses is now dismissed, and the tables of the covenant given him to lay up in the ark for a perpetual remembrance. The stones on which the commandments were written, fitly represent the hardness of men's hearts; and the finger of God, that Almighty Grace which can, even on such hearts as ours, inscribe his holy law.

ELLICOTT, "Verse 18THE TWO TABLES GIVE�.

(18) The termination and crown of the entire conference which Moses had held with God on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights (Exodus 24:18) was the committal to his hands of the two tables of testimony which had been promised before the ascent into the mount was made (Exodus 24:12), and which were pre-supposed in the entire arrangement of the sanctuary. The Court pre-supposed the tabernacle; the outer chamber of the tabernacle, or holy place, was a mere vestibule to the inner chamber, or holy of holies: the inner chamber was a receptacle for the ark; and the ark was a chest or coffer constructed to contain the Two Tables. The entire design having been laid down, it was a first step towards the carrying out of the design to put into the hands of Moses that treasure with a view to which all the directions concerning the tabernacle had been given.

Two tables of testimony.—Rather, the two tables. The treasure which had been glanced at in Exodus 25:21, and distinctly promised in Exodus 24:12.

Written with the finger of God.—Comp. Exodus 24:12, where God speaks of “commandments which He has written.” We must understand that the tables were inscribed by some supernatural process, and not by any human hand. The exact nature of the supernatural process is not revealed to us.

PARKER, "The Tables of Testimony

Exodus 31:18

Those two tables are two revelations; first, a revelation of man; and second, a revelation of God. In this light we may profitably read the commandments, gathering from them lessons and suggestions of the most far-reaching and useful kind. Given the Ten Commandments and all the other laws relating to them, and we can have no difficulty in finding out the quality of the life to which the commandments were addressed. The statute book of a people Isaiah , in one important sense, the history of a nation. He who reads our laws reads our lives. God has written upon these two tables the history, up to that time, of the human heart. Changing the figure, are not the two stones two mirrors, in which men may see what they have done? The commandments gather up the book of Genesis , and express it in terse lines. It would seem as if the book of Genesis ought to run straight up to the twentieth chapter of Exodus , that it might complete itself. Genesis may be described as covering an experimental period of time. Men were then without written law. �ature was, to a large extent, left to work out its own instinct and its own will. The

Genesis which gives us physical beauty also gives us moral ruin. The book of Genesis cannot end in itself. God would not cut us off at the end of Genesis. He would by so doing seem to cut off his own sovereignty, his own purpose, his own fatherhood. After every one of the commandments—not only the Ten Commandments, but all the other laws—God could have given a living illustration of his meaning, quoted from the book of Genesis. The commandments are not abstractions, they are concrete instances; the commandments are not metaphysical moralities, they express the disasters and the catastrophes which have been accomplished in human life. For this reason, let it be repeated, the two tables of stone, written by the finger of God, constitute the Divine revelation of human nature. Let us familiarise ourselves with this idea, and feel its rational force.

"Thou shall have no other gods before me." What an extraordinary suggestion! How impossible from what the philosophers would call an a priori point of view! Such an idea would never enter the human mind! So we might imperfectly and vainly reason. We would not, indeed, credit the human imagination with audacity enough to attempt to create other gods. Human imagination would rather turn in some other direction—would endeavour to flee away from the whole conception and discipline of the Divine idea, and constitute powers and realms altogether distant from the Divine throne. It required the Divine mind itself to see the possibility of this tremendous apostacy. Strange to say, the very first temptation that assailed mankind, so far as we are enlightened by the book of Genesis , was a temptation in this very direction. In effect it was: "Be gods yourselves; you have the fanciful notion that there is one God who has right of control over you, who may call you nightly to his Baruch , and audit the day"s moral accounts; nothing can be more preposterous; eat of this lovely tree, and the film will fall from your eyes, and a new stature and sense of dignity will be given to the soul, and ye shall be as gods." The temptation was worthy of the man. We sometimes have tributes paid to our dignity from unexpected sources. To have tempted the man back into some anterior point in his development (assuming the theory of development to be true) might have been resented, but to tempt him to fall upwards was a temptation worthy of the subtlest of tempters, and worthy to be addressed to a child of the Divine creation. See, therefore, in the very first instance, how God could have quoted a concrete case in illustration of the opening commandment.

"Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image"—for the purposes of worship. Again we say the idea is impossible. It does not fit into the structure of things with any sense of propriety. A man will never be so little of a man as to make an image and fall down before it. But in the book of Genesis you find images in plenty. This very thing which we now consider to be an impossibility has been a solemn and humiliating fact in the history of the first families of the race. Rachel knew where Laban"s gods were, and she stole them. So wonderful a thing is human piety: when perverted it will even steal a god.

"Honour thy father and thy mother? Could a concrete instance be put after that commandment? We have seen that when Esau married into Canaanitish relations he did that which was "a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah." Parental feeling

was ignored; parental rights were scorned; parental sympathies were violated and dishonoured.

"Thou shalt not kill"—a metaphysical impossibility, but an actual fact. From the opening of the book of Genesis to the end, Cain has been, in himself or in his progeny, a dominating figure.

"Thou shalt not commit adultery." The book of Genesis contains more terrible statements about that crime than about any other, having in it chapters which no man may read aloud.

"Thou shalt not steal" If Esau has violated one of the commandments, and is quoted as a historical instance: Jacob has violated another, and may be set up in the gallery evermore.

Thus the commandments are not metaphysical subtleties; are not fanciful suppositions in the Divine mind; are not merely ethical theories; they are one by one expressions of what man himself has done. The Ten Commandments are not ten mysteries. The Ten Commandments do not show that virtue is divisible into ten problems; but they show that vice has discovered ten ways of breaking through the golden circle of obedience. We know the commandments. Were no names mentioned; were the two tables of stone trumpeted by an angel from the radiant cloud, we should say at once, "These words are known down here, they need no exposition; we ourselves are living illustrations of every one of them." This being the case, what a tremendous hold the Bible gets upon every man! It speaks to something in the man; it secures the consent of the conscience of every man. The inward witness does not say, "Such commandments presuppose impossibilities on the part of those to whom they are addressed"; the answer Isaiah , "We have broken these laws one by one; we have wanted other gods; we have thought that a carved image might serve instead of a living Judge; fathers and mothers we have killed as soldiers kill one another on the battlefield; we have killed, committed adultery, stolen, broken holy days, violated sacred places; the angel is not speaking through his great trumpet of thunder to populations a whole universe distant from us, he has studied our history, and he is addressing himself to our iniquities."

The commandments are also on the other side quite as distinctly revelations of God. Let us consider an inquiry to this effect:—looking at the commandments, what should we infer as to the character of God? For the purposes of this study we are supposing that we have only the commandments as an indication of the moral quality of the Legislator. With the two tables of stone before us, written in a language we can understand, what should we say is the character of the Legislator? Do we not see a wonderful care for mankind? Is there not an undertone of affectionateness in all the majestic speech? Are there not some tears amid all this awful storm? Was not the tempest devised as an accompaniment to hide the grief? �ow that we are more carefully learned in all the wisdom of the heavenly kingdom may we not. descry a broken heart where we once only thought of an indignant Jehovah? This is the true care for man—to care for his character, to care for his

soul, to be vigilant respecting all the finer elements and qualities of his nature. To dress the body may be but to perpetrate an irony. To care for the child"s physical constitution may be but a cruel sin, but to care for his moral quality, for his temper, his instincts, his soul-forces; to devote attention to his mind, to his motives, to the very springs and first motions of his life—that is care,—a care, indeed, not inconsistent with solicitude regarding matters physical and circumstances of an outward kind; but this is seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. To clothe the child, so far as it is possible, with the garment of a pure character; to make the young soul heroic in all purpose and endeavour; to lead the heart to the mystery of sacrifice, and to make the innermost tenant of the human being ashamed of sin, afraid of it, regarding it as hateful—that is to show true care, true appreciation of human nature. This is what God does here. He is building up an interior heart. He is moulding an innermost life; as for clothing, decoration, circumstance, outward importance—these are fading flowers. God cannot rest until he has made the heart right and purified the fountain of the life.

Can we fail to see a gracious condescension to the moral capacity of mankind? The Lord is pleased to speak of himself as a "jealous God." Does he mean that? �ot as we mean it. This word has sometimes shocked us. It was not spoken to us. God has always spoken to the race in the language of its own day. This is the only speech that could have been understood at the time at which it was spoken. This explains many a difficulty in the earlier books of Scripture. Why persist in taking our modern education back to earlier barbarities? In this way we defraud ourselves of the richest teaching of history, and bring upon the mind a sense of confusion which interferes with the unity of worship and the completeness of sacrifice. You use to children words you will not use to them when they are fully grown men and women. You must avail yourselves of an emphasis which would be out of place in speech addressed to equals, or to those who have made considerable advance in intellectual culture. The Divine meaning could only have been expressed in the words which God used at the time. The word is not the meaning, the meaning is in the word; as the body is not the Prayer of Manasseh , the man is in the body. History sheds off the body and reveals the spirit. This is the law of spiritual progress, and this is one of the innermost secrets of spiritual insight.

Can we once more fail to see how gradually men have been trained to moral pureness and dignity? The commandments are in a certain sense very rude words. They would be resented if addressed to us personally in some of their details. What man of this century, having passed through the process of Christian culture, could have addressed to him seriously the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill"? The man might be offended; he would suppose he was altogether unknown to the person who thus rudely addressed him, seeing that manslaughter or homicide never came within the imagination, which would have been debased or inflamed into delirium if it could have contemplated the shedding of human blood. We must begin the education of people where they themselves are. Education always goes down to the pupil, and thus lifts the pupil to its own level. It is one of the finest proofs of the gradual revelation of the Divine kingdom that from the first to the last the law pursues an ascending and widening line. How subtly the last commandment seems

to link itself on to a higher kingdom. Is it not so in all development, that there is something of feature or nexus, something of subtle indication or fleshly possession, meaning that one kingdom has culminated, and another is just about to come down to earth? That nexus you do not find in "Thou shalt not kill" "Thou shalt not commit adultery" "Thou shalt not steal" These are what we should now term broad vulgarities; but the connecting link or tentacle, just hooking itself on to something almost invisible, is to be found in the last commandment, "Thou shalt not covet" That is the most spiritual word we have yet heard in all the commandments addressed to us in our social relations. The legislator is now giving us to understand that we have a spirit. He is about to prepare the way for some nobler kingdom, and truth, and thought, and relation. Thus by throwing new words into a language God prepares the way for new thoughts that are quickly to follow from heaven. God does not make great gaps which it is impossible either to leap or to bridge over; but by turning common language into uncommon uses, by striking points of departure, by the change of one hue of language, he prepares the way for the next higher kingdom, the next brighter revelation. �ow that he has come so far as covetousness, he will, by-and-by, come right into the very centre of the heart and tell us that we are no longer in the infantile school, needing rude instruction about killing and stealing and other iniquities, but must have the heart cleansed, for out of the human heart proceed all those things which offend the heart of God.

Why go back to these old times? Because we want to be like those teachers who are worshipped for their comprehensiveness and their philosophical temper. The preacher can go back as well as the annalist. When a political historian spends days, and weeks, and months, in the Record Office and in the literary recesses of the British Museum, and then comes forth with his history, we call him a philosophical historian. When he enriches his pages with innumerable references to volumes we never heard of, giving page, chapter, section, and line, we call him a trust-worthy historian. When the social annalist would show his country what the course of his country has been, the farther he can go back into archaic times the more he is respected by modern critics. But when a preacher goes back to Genesis , he is supposed to have gone out of the times, and to have connected himself with forces, and ministries, and institutions which have fallen into desuetude. We protest against such partial criticism. There is a philosophy of religious inquiry as well as a philosophy of political investigation, and we insist upon having the Book of God read as a whole. That is our purpose for going back to its opening pages and to its earliest characters. The book is one. It never goes back or overlaps itself in a backward direction, but from first to last it maintains a line of progress and asserts a vertebral unity which constitutes an unassailable argument for its Divine origin. The books of Scripture must not be broken off one from the other as if they were separated and unrelated stones in a heap. If you take a book out of the Bible you take a stone out of a temple, a star out of a constellation,—a felony that cannot be permitted. So we must not be deterred from going into our records and our museums, and searching into roots, and origins, and beginnings. We, too, must be prayerfully philosophical and rationalistic, turning over page by page, and turning over every page, fearing nothing that comes up; taking it in chronological sequence, and persevering through all rocky places, and dangerous paths, and mountainous

districts—on and on, until we come to the trumpets and vials, and thunders, and songs and hallelujahs of the Apocalypse; and having come into these completions we shall know the meaning of the last sweet word—for when all the thunders have died away, when the storm has spent itself on the affrighted hills, there comes this still small voice—"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."

PETT, "The Final Act On The Mount; The Giving of the Covenant Written by God (Exodus 31:18).

Exodus 31:18

‘And he gave to Moses, when he had made an end of speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone written with the finger of God.’God’s period of fellowship and discussion with Moses (begun in Exodus 25:1) was now over and He gave to Moses two tablets which were the confirmation of the covenant and contained the covenant of the ten words which had been written by His finger, His personal written covenant with His people (see Exodus 32:15-16). These were the sign that the interview was over, and that matters were finalised.

The ten words would be in groups of five, so that there would be five on each, the covenant number twice repeated in witness. That is why they were called the Testimony. ‘The finger of God’ need not be taken literally. God used His own method of inscribing the tablets. The point was that it was not Moses who had engraved the words on the tablets, but God. ‘The finger of God’ was a favourite way in Egypt of speaking of any wonder that was truly of God (Exodus 8:19). (Some see two duplicate tablets with ten on each, providing copies for both parties in the covenant).

�otes to Christians.

In this chapter it is made clear that in the service of God we must receive our Spirit and wisdom from Him. Without that it will not be satisfactory (compare 1 Corinthians 2:11-16). And we learn that where God has a work that He wants done He appoints the men to do it. They are individually chosen, but along with them work a whole team of skilful craftsmen, anonymous to us but known to Him, without whom, humanly speaking, the work of God in completing the living, believing church, His temple, will not be completed.

And it is made clear that we must set apart a time for God which is wholly for Him, a time when nothing intrudes to prevent our whole attention being on Him. (And we must not only do so for ourselves, we must ensure that it is possible for others). Some may select one particular day, others may select every day, but we must be satisfied in our own minds about what we do (Romans 14:4-6), and that we do it honestly as those who must give account (Romans 14:10-12). And the keeping of such a time to God is to be a sign to Him and to the world that we belong to Him.

PULPIT, "THE TABLES OF TESTIMO�Y. It had been assumed, in the directions

given for the construction of the ark, that God would give, in some material form, a document to be called "the testimony," which was to be laid up inside it (Exodus 25:16). It is not too much to say that the tabernacle, with its various appurtenances, was constructed for this purpose; the rest of the tabernacle was designed with a view to the holy of holies the holy of holies was designed as a receptacle for the ark—and the ark was designed as a receptacle for the tables of testimony. This section could, therefore, scarcely be concluded without some definite account of the document which was to give the ark and the tabernacle itself, its main significance.

Exodus 31:18

When he had made an end of communing. Literally, "when he had finished speaking." Two tables. Rather, "the two tables"—i.e; the tables promised when he went up into the mount (Exodus 24:12). Of stone. Stone was the ordinary material on which Egyptian documents were engraved, both at the time of the Exodus, and before and after. They were, however, for the most part, either inscribed upon the natural rock, or engraved on the walls of temples or tombs. Inscriptions upon slabs of stone are rare, more especially in the early times, and would scarcely have occurred to Moses himself. Written with the finger of God—i.e; "inscribed supernaturally"—not cut by any human hand. Compare Exodus 32:16. It is idle to speculate on the exact mode of the Divine operation.