Instructing And Constructing

“You shall make a table of acacia wood. Two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. You shall overlay it with pure gold and make a molding of gold around it.” – Exodus 25:23-24

“He also made the table of acacia wood. Two cubits was its length, a cubit its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. And he overlaid it with pure gold, and made a molding of gold around it.” – Exodus 37:10-11

The first time I ever did cataract surgery on my own in residency, one of my co-residents pulled me aside beforehand. He had gone through this rotation already, and offered this advice: “Every cataract surgery consists of the same basic steps; just know them and you’ll be fine.” He rattled them off to me, and I repeated them back, then said them again to myself in my head after I was gowned and gloved up, my attending watching me like a hawk through the observer scope. Paracentesis first, blade in, tilt down with exit. Viscoelastic goes into the anterior chamber…

It appears that the last few chapters of Exodus are a near word-by-word replay of earlier chapters in the book. The repetition seems a bit excessive. Moses could have saved a lot of ink by simply saying, “Bezalel did as the Lord commanded”—why doesn’t he? Why all the repetition?

For one, the details are so significant they bear repeating. My surgery mattered for the patient’s vision, and I wanted to pass muster in the eyes of my attending—but the construction of the tabernacle was a matter of life and death, the instructions given by God himself. It had to be gotten right. Most of the Israelites would never see parts of the temple that were accessible only to the priests, and so Moses recounts every detail to show that not one was missed.

The repetition emphasizes the inerrancy of God’s word. “Not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished,” Jesus says in Matthew 5:18. Down to the cubit, every word God spoke on the mountain is fulfilled. But the repetition also highlights how God works through his people. In contrast with the instruction-version, the construction-version has Bezalel—master craftsman, surgeon of metal and wood—as the subject of nearly every sentence. Bezalel and others, for every skilled craftsman came together, and many people contributed materially. We are all Bezalel’s, uniquely positioned and gifted to reflect God’s character and expand his place of dwelling, his kingdom, through our work. 

But it wasn’t all up to the people. It was God who called Bezalel, who filled him “with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship” (Exodus 31:2-3). It was the Spirit of God who filled Bezalel, who moved the hearts of the people (Exodus 35:21). We see that God not only works through, but equips, those he calls. What are you creating, and how does it reflect the character of God and his dwelling with us? How is it being faithful to God’s given word?