Bible Commentaries
Exodus 36

Verses 1-38

Chapter 36

Then wrought Bezaleel and Aholiab, and wise hearted, in whom the LORD had put the wisdom and understanding to know how to work all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary. And Moses called Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whose heart the LORD had put the wisdom, even everyone whose heart had stirred him up to come to work to do it ( Exodus 36:1-2 ):

So again it was God stirring up people's hearts to come and do the work. Every fellow that just felt, "Oh man, I would like to come down to work". God stirred their hearts. They came and worked and it was done. The work of God was done with willing hearts. The work of God is always accomplished through willing hearts. God stirs a person's heart to do something.

That's exciting to be around a bunch of men whose hearts have stirred by God, where you don't have to be constantly be pushing and pressuring and tugging on them. The hardest thing in the world is to try to pastor a church whose nobody's heart has been stirred and you are just constantly fighting it. But when you get with a bunch of guys whose hearts have been stirred by the Lord, well, just like what happened here, man, you've got to put the brakes on. You've got to say, "All right, that's enough; we've got enough."

And they spake unto Moses, saying, The people have brought much more than enough for the service of the work, which the LORD has commanded to make. And so Moses gave commandment, they caused it to be proclaimed all throughout the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. And so the people were restrained from bringing ( Exodus 36:5-6 ).

Man, that's real revival when you have to tell the people, "All right, that's enough don't bring anymore." Isn't that neat? For the stuff that they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, actually they had too much.

So they began to make, first of all, the linen curtains that were to cover the tent. And then they began to make these goats' hair curtains that were to go over the top of the linen curtains that had all this fancy embroidery work in it. Then they made the rams' skins that they had dyed red as the third covering over the top of the goats' hair. Then they made the boards and the sockets of silver that the boards set in to go around the perimeter of the tabernacle.

And as you remember it was fifteen feet by forty-five feet. And they made these forty sockets of silver to set these gold overlaid acacia boards in. They made the bars that would run through the rings to hold them in an upright position. And in chapter thirty-eight, we are told that the amount of gold that was used in verse twenty-four, for the work and all the work of the holy place, even the gold of the offering was twenty-nine talents and seven hundred and thirty shekels.

So in reality it was about eight hundred and seventy thousand dollars worth of gold at thirty-two dollars an ounce. So now at four hundred dollars an ounce, just about ten million dollars worth of gold used for the overlaying of the tables and the making of the mercy seat and the cherubim, and so forth. And the silver that was numbered among the congregation was one hundred talents and one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels after the shekel of the sanctuary. So it was totaled out to in silver again down in the present price at about one hundred and ninety-four thousand dollars at the one dollar and eighty cents per troy ounce. And so this was a beautiful, expensive little tabernacle that they were building for God, a little tent where they might meet God in the wilderness.

And then in chapter thirty-nine they began to make these garments for Aaron, and we went over these last week. And so it's just sort of a repetition, only now they are making it. They made the robe; they made the blue robe that went over the linen robe. Then they made that little ephod which is sort of an apron, and they made the breastplate. They made the golden girdle, the sash that went around the ephod. They carved out the names in the little onyx stones that held the ephod together at his shoulders. They made the mitre and the crown for the priest to wear.

And in all of these things, notice at the end of verse twenty-six "as the LORD commanded Moses"; the end of verse twenty-nine "as the LORD commanded Moses"; thirty-one "as the LORD commanded Moses"; thirty-two at the end "as the LORD commanded Moses"; "so did they". Verse forty-two, "according to all that the LORD commanded Moses so the children of Israel made all the work and Moses did look upon all the work and behold they had done it as the LORD had commanded even so they had done it and Moses blessed them." So everything was done right according to the blueprints, right as the Lord had ordered. Why? Because these were all to be a model of things in Heaven.

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