Seder 69: Exodus 31---An Inspired Building Project with a Six-Day Work Week

 On Mt Sinai God revealed to Moses that he would be empowering certain Israelites to carry out the construction of the tabernacle and its furnishings.  One was "Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah" (Ex 31:2).  Hur's father was named Caleb, whose father was named Hezron  (1 Ch 2:18-19).  Certain names tended to repeat often in tribes of Israel.  This Caleb was not the same as the famous Caleb son of Jephunneh who later was able to enter the Promised Land.  And Bezalel's grandfather Hur was not necessarily the same Hur mentioned in Exodus 17 and Exodus 24.    

Bezalel would be assisted by Oholiab of the tribe of Dan.  The meanings of their names are interesting.  Bezalel means "shadow of God," and Oholiab means "tent of the Father" or "the Father is my tent."  As men created in the image of God, they would be exercising their talents to do important creative work.

In the midst of this work it would be important for Bezalel to remember that he did indeed work in God's shadow, owing all of his skill to God.  And so each week during the construction, he would pause to keep the Sabbath in honor of the ultimate Creator and source of his abilities (vv 12-18).  The Sabbath was the first thing made holy by God, and it took precedence over the holy place that he would be constructing.

Exodus 31:14 mentions that profanation of the Sabbath was a capital offense.  Here we should remember that in the Torah, the death penalty for crimes other than first-degree murder was a maximum penalty, not an obligatory penalty (Num 35:31).  The point in labeling a particular crime a capital crime was to emphasize that sins so designated are serious sins.  

We know of one person put to death for profaning the Sabbath (Num 15:32-36).  In this particular case, the sin was committed defiantly, with the offender implying that he did not want to be part of the covenant community.  Fifteen hundred years later, Jewish law would specify that to secure a conviction for Sabbath profanation, two witnesses would have to have warned the offender in advance on the gravity of the offense, and the offender would have to have acknowledged that he understood the warning and then gone on to commit the offense in public.