X-Dreamers
Bible chapter guide
Exodus 35
Moses repeats the Sabbath command and calls for the offering. Everyone whose heart is willing brings gold, yarn, skins, wood, spices and stones, and skilled men and women begin the work under Bezalel and Oholiab.
Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.
What happens in this chapter
Moses gathers the whole people, repeats the Sabbath law with one new detail, that no fire is to be lit in any home that day, and passes on God's call for an offering. Men and women come with whatever they have: brooches, earrings, rings and armlets of gold, yarn and linen, skins, silver, bronze and acacia wood. Skilled women spin the blue, purple and scarlet yarn and the goats' hair, and the tribal leaders bring the onyx and the gemstones for the ephod and breastpiece, with spices and oil. Moses then presents Bezalel and Oholiab to the people as the craftsmen God has chosen, able both to do the work and to teach it.
What the lab shows, and where to look
The labs show what these gifts turned into. In the Tabernacle lab the women's spinning is in the Goats'-Hair Curtains, drawn near black like Bedouin tent cloth (a plausible guess, since the text gives no colour), and in the blue, purple and scarlet of the Veil. The 'pins of the court, and their cords' of verse 18 are the bronze pegs and cords on Court Pillars, rigged in a way the lab marks as its own reconstruction. The leaders' onyx stones are on the shoulders of the ephod in The Priests' Garments, and their twelve gems are on the breastpiece.
- Goats'-Hair Curtains · The Tabernacle
- Veil · The Tabernacle
- Court Pillars, Pegs and Cords · The Tabernacle
- The ephod · The Priests' Garments
- The breastpiece of judgment · The Priests' Garments
Questions people ask
Where did former slaves get gold and fine cloth?
Exodus says that as they left, the Israelites asked the Egyptians for jewels of silver and gold and for clothing, and were given them (12:35–36). The gifts in this chapter are largely things of that kind: brooches, earrings, signet rings and armlets (35:22). The acacia wood is less of a puzzle, since acacia trees grow in Sinai and the Arabah.
Who did the work on the tabernacle?
Not only Bezalel and Oholiab. Every skilled man was called to the work (35:10), skilled women spun the yarn and the goats' hair (35:25–26), and the leaders gave the stones and spices (35:27–28). The gifts were given as each person's heart moved them; the only fixed payment in the whole account is the census half-shekel of chapter 30.
Why no fire on the Sabbath?
Verse 3 adds it to the Sabbath law just as the work is about to begin, and gives no reason. Jewish practice has kept it, and the Talmud counts the kinds of work forbidden on the Sabbath from the tasks of building the tabernacle (Shabbat 49b), lighting a fire among them. Whether the verse forbids any fire burning, or only kindling one, has itself been read both ways.
See it in the Labs
Also in this chapter
How sure can we be?
- Plausible
Each pillar was guyed by cords to bronze pegs inside and outside the fence.
Pegs and cords are mentioned for the court; how they were rigged is not described.