Exodus 36:1-38
1 Then wrought Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whom the LORD put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary, according to all that the LORD had commanded.
2 And Moses called Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whose heart the LORD had put wisdom, even every one whose heart stirred him up to come unto the work to do it:
3 And they received of Moses all the offering, which the children of Israel had brought for the work of the service of the sanctuary, to make it withal. And they brought yet unto him free offerings every morning.
4 And all the wise men, that wrought all the work of the sanctuary, came every man from his work which they made;
5 And they spake unto Moses, saying, The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work, which the LORD commanded to make.
6 And Moses gave commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing.
7 For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much.
8 And every wise hearted man among them that wrought the work of the tabernacle made ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work made he them.
9 The length of one curtain was twenty and eight cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: the curtains were all of one size.
10 And he coupled the five curtains one unto another: and the other five curtains he coupled one unto another.
11 And he made loops of blue on the edge of one curtain from the selvedge in the coupling: likewise he made in the uttermost side of another curtain, in the coupling of the second.
12 Fifty loops made he in one curtain, and fifty loops made he in the edge of the curtain which was in the coupling of the second: the loops held one curtain to another.
13 And he made fifty taches of gold, and coupled the curtains one unto another with the taches: so it became one tabernacle.
14 And he made curtains of goats' hair for the tent over the tabernacle: eleven curtains he made them.
15 The length of one curtain was thirty cubits, and four cubits was the breadth of one curtain: the eleven curtains were of one size.
16 And he coupled five curtains by themselves, and six curtains by themselves.
17 And he made fifty loops upon the uttermost edge of the curtain in the coupling, and fifty loops made he upon the edge of the curtain which coupleth the second.
18 And he made fifty taches of brass to couple the tent together, that it might be one.
19 And he made a covering for the tent of rams' skins dyed red, and a covering of badgers' skins above that.
20 And he made boards for the tabernacle of shittim wood, standing up.
21 The length of a board was ten cubits, and the breadth of a board one cubit and a half.
22 One board had two tenons, equally distant one from another: thus did he make for all the boards of the tabernacle.
23 And he made boards for the tabernacle; twenty boards for the south side southward:
24 And forty sockets of silver he made under the twenty boards; two sockets under one board for his two tenons, and two sockets under another board for his two tenons.
25 And for the other side of the tabernacle, which is toward the north corner, he made twenty boards,
26 And their forty sockets of silver; two sockets under one board, and two sockets under another board.
27 And for the sides of the tabernacle westward he made six boards.
28 And two boards made he for the corners of the tabernacle in the two sides.
29 And they were coupleda beneath, and coupled together at the head thereof, to one ring: thus he did to both of them in both the corners.
30 And there were eight boards; and their sockets were sixteen sockets of silver, under every board two sockets.
31 And he made bars of shittim wood; five for the boards of the one side of the tabernacle,
32 And five bars for the boards of the other side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards of the tabernacle for the sides westward.
33 And he made the middle bar to shoot through the boards from the one end to the other.
34 And he overlaid the boards with gold, and made their rings of gold to be places for the bars, and overlaid the bars with gold.
35 And he made a vail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen: with cherubims made he it of cunning work.
36 And he made thereunto four pillars of shittim wood, and overlaid them with gold: their hooks were of gold; and he cast for them four sockets of silver.
37 And he made an hanging for the tabernacle door of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, of needlework;b
38 And the five pillars of it with their hooks: and he overlaid their chapiters and their fillets with gold: but their five sockets were of brass.
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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