Exodus 36:1, commentary and pictures

The Lord Himself chose Bezaleel and Aholiab and every wise-hearted, willing worker and put wisdom and understanding in them to know how to do every kind of work for the service of the sanctuary exactly as He had commanded. Their skill was His gift, for He filled them with His Spirit in wisdom and knowledge and workmanship as engravers and designers and embroiderers and weavers, and heavenly intelligences worked together with the human craftsmen He had chosen. The work was done under His direction, for He planned it and taught and fitted the workers for their tasks, and they gave heart and soul and strength and physical ability to honor and serve Him. The skill and exactness and care He required for the tabernacle stand as the pattern for every kind of work done in His service, so that practical craftsmanship done by His commands and for His glory testifies to the truth. As workers use what He gives they gain still more wisdom and skill to overcome difficulties, but the descendants who inherited that God-given ability lost their hold on God when they turned from unselfish service to seek greater wages and use their skill for heathen kings.

Wisdom Given for Tabernacle

The Lord himself chose Bezaleel and Aholiab and every wise-hearted, willing worker for the service of the sanctuary. He put wisdom and understanding in them to know how to do all manner of work for that service according to all that he had commanded. Their ability to carry out the commanded work came from him and was to be used in service to him.

That skill and ability were a gift from God for his service. Heavenly intelligences, heavenly beings, cooperated with the craftsmen, the people, the workers he had chosen. His work was thus done through human agents cooperating with heavenly help.

He filled them with the Spirit of God in wisdom and understanding and knowledge and all manner of workmanship. They were made engravers and cunning workmen and embroiderers and weavers and devisers of cunning work. He put it in their hearts to teach others.

The tabernacle work was done under his direction, for he designed and planned it and taught and equipped the workers for their tasks. The skilled workers put heart and soul and strength into the work. They used their physical ability to honor and serve him.

Pattern for God's Work

The wisdom and understanding for skilled work in service come from God, and the ability used to make the sanctuary was His gift to be exercised according to His commands and for His glory, so that practical craftsmanship could serve as a testimony to the truth. The skill, exactness, and care required for building the tabernacle are a pattern for every kind of work done in His service. Bezaleel, Aholiab, and the other willing, wise-hearted workers received wisdom and understanding to carry out the sanctuary work according to all that He had commanded, and their skill came from God and was used in service to Him.

That pattern means responsibilities are to be shared among capable people who stand together rather than being carried by one person alone, and others should develop their abilities so they can assume responsibility and keep the work moving. As workers use the abilities He gives, they gain further wisdom, understanding, and skill to overcome difficulties, for His instruction equips His servants for their work and helps them grow toward completeness. Medical missionary workers likewise must keep learning and strive for excellence, trusting Him to give wisdom and understanding.

The same skill and understanding in all manner of cunning work given for building the tabernacle is given now to His people in combining natural food products to secure a healthful diet. He is teaching many minds in many places to make healthful foods, and workers should exercise their own ingenuity in preparing them instead of prying into the secrets of others. Many products, if properly prepared and combined, can be made into foods that bless those who cannot afford the more expensive, specially prepared health foods. In the same way the Holy Spirit gives workers tact and intelligence for making health foods and enables them to do sound work in building up the body as a tabernacle.

Descendants' Faithfulness and Failure

The men chosen for the sanctuary work were illustrious ancestors from the tribes of Judah and Dan, Bezaleel and Aholiab and every wise-hearted worker with them, who did all the skilled labor for the service of the sanctuary with wisdom and understanding and skill put in them by the Lord. They labored in humility and unselfishness and noble self-sacrifice, while heavenly beings cooperated with the human craftsmen in the building of the wilderness sanctuary. Their talents and skill in the finer arts were inherited to a large degree by their descendants, who received much of that God-given ability.

For a time those descendants remained humble and unselfish as their fathers had been. Then gradually, almost imperceptibly, they lost their hold upon God and their desire to serve Him unselfishly, and turned away from Him and from truth.

In their covetousness and grasping for more and more they sought greater wages for their superior skill, and when their demand was refused they often found employment among the surrounding nations. There they used their God-given abilities in the service of heathen kings to perfect works that dishonored their Maker.