Exodus 36:1-38 - Give More than Enough

Exodus 36:1-38 

1 “And Bezalel and Aholiab, and every gifted artisan in whom the LORD has put wisdom and understanding, to know how to do all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary, shall do according to all that the LORD has commanded.”

The People Give More than Enough

2 Then Moses called Bezalel and Aholiab, and every gifted artisan in whose heart the LORD had put wisdom, everyone whose heart was stirred, to come and do the work. 3 And they received from Moses all the offering which the children of Israel had brought for the work of the service of making the sanctuary. So they continued bringing to him freewill offerings every morning. 4 Then all the craftsmen who were doing all the work of the sanctuary came, each from the work he was doing, 5 and they spoke to Moses, saying, “The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work which the LORD commanded us to do.”

6 So Moses gave a commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, “Let neither man nor woman do any more work for the offering of the sanctuary.” And the people were restrained from bringing, 7 for the material they had was sufficient for all the work to be done—indeed too much.

Building the Tabernacle (Exodus 26:1–37)

8 Then all the gifted artisans among them who worked on the tabernacle made ten curtains woven of fine linen, and of blue, purple, and scarlet thread; with artistic designs of cherubim they made them. 9 The length of each curtain was twenty-eight cubits, and the width of each curtain four cubits; the curtains were all the same size. 10 And he coupled five curtains to one another, and the other five curtains he coupled to one another. 11 He made loops of blue yarn on the edge of the curtain on the selvedge of one set; likewise he did on the outer edge of the other curtain of the second set. 12 Fifty loops he made on one curtain, and fifty loops he made on the edge of the curtain on the end of the second set; the loops held one curtain to another. 13 And he made fifty clasps of gold, and coupled the curtains to one another with the clasps, that it might be one tabernacle.

14 He made curtains of goats’ hair for the tent over the tabernacle; he made eleven curtains. 15 The length of each curtain was thirty cubits, and the width of each curtain four cubits; the eleven curtains were the same size. 16 He coupled five curtains by themselves and six curtains by themselves. 17 And he made fifty loops on the edge of the curtain that is outermost in one set, and fifty loops he made on the edge of the curtain of the second set. 18 He also made fifty bronze clasps to couple the tent together, that it might be one. 19 Then he made a covering for the tent of ram skins dyed red, and a covering of badger skins above that.

20 For the tabernacle he made boards of acacia wood, standing upright. 21 The length of each board was ten cubits, and the width of each board a cubit and a half. 22 Each board had two tenons for binding one to another. Thus he made for all the boards of the tabernacle. 23 And he made boards for the tabernacle, twenty boards for the south side. 24 Forty sockets of silver he made to go under the twenty boards: two sockets under each of the boards for its two tenons. 25 And for the other side of the tabernacle, the north side, he made twenty boards 26 and their forty sockets of silver: two sockets under each of the boards. 27 For the west side of the tabernacle he made six boards. 28 He also made two boards for the two back corners of the tabernacle. 29 And they were coupled at the bottom and coupled together at the top by one ring. Thus he made both of them for the two corners. 30 So there were eight boards and their sockets—sixteen sockets of silver—two sockets under each of the boards.

31 And he made bars of acacia wood: five for the boards on one side of the tabernacle, 32 five bars for the boards on the other side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards of the tabernacle on the far side westward. 33 And he made the middle bar to pass through the boards from one end to the other. 34 He overlaid the boards with gold, made their rings of gold to be holders for the bars, and overlaid the bars with gold.

35 And he made a veil of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen; it was worked with an artistic design of cherubim. 36 He made for it four pillars of acacia wood, and overlaid them with gold, with their hooks of gold; and he cast four sockets of silver for them.

37 He also made a screen for the tabernacle door, of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and fine woven linen, made by a weaver, 38 and its five pillars with their hooks. And he overlaid their capitals and their rings with gold, but their five sockets were bronze.

Gifted artisans were given wisdom and understanding to make the temple grand to honor the LORD and provide a place of worship and sacrifice for Israel.  Their hearts were stirred by divine working that they might gain skills and knowledge to wisely accomplish all that needed to be done.  The rest of the people gave so much more than enough for the service of the work that Moses had to put a restraining order against providing any more materials as they had more than enough and any additional materials would not be able to be used.  I imagine that they would have had large piles taking up too much of and hinder the work, as well taking away from the gift bearers what they themselves needed for their own sustenance.  Having then received more than enough to complete the work, the gifted artisans set to work according to the blueprint given Moses on the mountain when he met with God and was handed these plans to work from.  Great detail is given here in this account of their skillful work to make the tabernacle to be a close representation of the heavenly temple (Hebrews 8:5) on earth until the true would come from heaven (Hebrews 9:11-12, Revelation 21:3) and Christ Himself would enter the most holy place for us as High Priest and sacrifice for our sins, one perfect sacrifice that is effective forever.  The amount of detail given here allows us to reconstruct the appearance of the earthly representation of the heavenly place that we may begin to be in awe of what is promised to come.  We now work to erect the heavenly temple of our bodies as stones of the whole tabernacle (1 Peter 2:4-5, Ephesians 2:21-22) with Christ as our Cornerstone (1 Corinthians 3:9, Ephesians 2:20, 1 Peter 2:6-7) to align ourselves with and set the foundation on more secure ground through the ministry of the gospel for which we should all be moved to give more than enough of our very lives to build for His return.  This building is the dwelling of our Lord and His kingdom in us (John 17:23), and we have the further anticipation of the eternal physical one (Revelation 21:3) with God’s presence come to earth at last and forever for us to worship before His face in thankful praise for His Son’s sacrifice and eternal ministry as our High Priest.  May we continue to give more than enough as we labor with the gifts, skills, and knowledge to wisely build (1 Corinthians 3:10) on this foundation.  Amen!