Commentaria in Exodum
Chapter the Thirty-first
Beseleel and Ooliab are appointed by God as the architects of the tabernacle; secondly, verse 13, God repeats and enforces the keeping of the sabbath; thirdly, verse 18, God gives Moses the two tables of the law, of stone.
1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 2. Behold, I have called by name Beseleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Juda: 3. And I have filled him with the spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding, and knowledge in all manner of work, 4. To devise whatsoever may be artificially made of gold, and silver, and brass, 5. Of marble, and precious stones, and variety of wood. 6. And I have given him for his companion Ooliab the son of Achisamech, of the tribe of Dan. And I have put wisdom in the heart of every skilful man, that they may make all things which I have commanded thee: 7. The tabernacle of the covenant, and the ark of the testimony, and the propitiatory that is over it, and all the vessels of the tabernacle, 8. And the table and its vessels, the most pure candlestick with its vessels, and the altars of incense, 9. And of holocaust, and all their vessels, the laver with its foot, 10. The holy vestments for Aaron the priest, and for his sons, that they may do the office of priesthood to me. 11. The oil of unction, and the sweet incense in the holy place: they shall make all things which I have commanded thee. 12. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 13. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: See that thou keep my sabbath: because it is a sign between me and you in your generations: that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctify you. 14. Keep my sabbath: for it is holy unto you: he that shall profane it shall be put to death: he that shall do any work in it, his soul shall perish out of the midst of his people. 15. Six days shall you do work: in the seventh day is the sabbath, the rest holy to the Lord. Every one that shall do any work on this day, shall die. 16. Let the children of Israel keep the sabbath, and celebrate it in their generations. 17. It is an everlasting covenant between me and the children of Israel, and a perpetual sign. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and in the seventh he ceased from work. 18. And the Lord gave to Moses, when he had ended these words in mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, of stone, written with the finger of God.
2. I HAVE CALLED BY NAME BESELEEL,—as if to say: I, God, have by name, before all others, chosen and designated Beseleel, that he himself may make the tabernacle and all its furniture; “I have called” is put by catachresis for I have designated: for those who are appointed by men as magistrates or officers are wont to be summoned to that station by name; whence the Spaniards call them criados.
BESELEEL THE SON OF URI, THE SON OF HUR.—Beseleel seems to have been that Hur of whom chap. 17, verse 12, and chap. 24, verse 14. For he was one of the elders of Israel, and next in dignity to Aaron the brother of Moses; and therefore Moses sets down Beseleel’s genealogy from him, as if he were sufficiently known from his grandfather Hur, whom he had mentioned above; and it might easily happen that Beseleel, though a grandson, lived at the same time as his grandfather Hur, for instance if we give Beseleel sixty years and Hur a hundred, or a hundred and ten. Abulensis denies this, and holds that Beseleel was at this time ninety-two years of age. But who would believe that so old a man was chosen for so great and laborious a work?
Now this Hur was the son of Caleb (not that famous spy who alone with Josue stood against the murmurers, as R. Solomon will have it; for he had not at this time reached the age of forty, as is plain from Josue 14:7), but of another far older, namely the son of Esron, the son of Phares, the son of Juda the patriarch.
Symbolically Strabus, or the Ordinary Gloss: “In the construction of the tabernacle,” he says, “the mystery of the Trinity is shown, as in the baptism and transfiguration of Christ. For in the baptism the Father spoke by a voice, and the Son was baptized, and the Holy Ghost appeared in the form of a dove. In like manner here Ooliab, which is interpreted my Father is my protection, signifies the person of the Father. Beseleel, which is the same as in the shadow of God, signifies the Holy Ghost, of whom it is said: The power of the Most High, that is, the Holy Ghost, shall overshadow thee. And the command, that is, the word by which the tabernacle was commanded to be made, is the Son, by whom the Father in the power of the Holy Ghost worketh all things.” For the Holy Trinity builds and fashions for itself, as a temple, both this material tabernacle and its antitype, the Church, and holy souls.
Tropologically, “Hur” in Hebrew signifies whiteness, and bright light, such as faith is. “Uri” signifies fire, such as charity is. “Beseleel” signifies in the shadow of God, such as hope is: for hope rests securely in the help of God as in a shadow. Now these three, namely faith, hope and charity, build the tabernacle, that is, the house of the soul, that it may be a temple of God.
3. AND I HAVE FILLED HIM WITH THE SPIRIT OF GOD,—that is, with my spirit. For God speaks, after the Hebrew manner, of himself as of some third person. A similar enallage of person is in the last verse, and Gen. 19:24, and Num. 12:
the Spirit of God is what follows, namely wisdom, understanding and knowledge in all manner of work, given and breathed by God. For it is an apposition: “With the Spirit of God (which is) wisdom, understanding and knowledge in all work.” See what was said in chap. 28, verse 3.
6. AND I HAVE GIVEN HIM FOR HIS COMPANION OOLIAB THE SON OF ACHISAMECH.—“Ooliab” in Hebrew is the same as my tabernacle, or the Father is my protection, namely the heavenly Father;
“Achisamech” is the same as joining brethren.
This therefore signifies the Apostles and apostolic men, who by hope in God, and by God’s help and protection, which Ooliab signifies, and by mutual and brotherly help, which Achisamech signifies, built the Church, which is the tabernacle of God. And in particular, says the Gloss: “Beseleel and Ooliab are Peter and Paul, who two after Christ built the Church of the Jews and of the Gentiles. For Beseleel, which is interpreted the shadow of God, signifies Peter: for at the touch of his shadow the sick were healed by divine power, Acts 5. Ooliab, which is interpreted my Father is my protection, or my dwelling, is Paul, who in mind dwelt in God the Father of all; whence he himself says, Philip. 3: ‘Our conversation is in heaven.’”
AND IN THE HEART OF EVERY SKILFUL MAN I HAVE PUT WISDOM, THAT THEY MAY MAKE ALL THINGS WHICH I HAVE COMMANDED THEE,—as if to say: To the lesser and inferior skilled artificers I gave also their own industry and skill, that they might help Beseleel and Ooliab in the making of the tabernacle.
Learn hence that all arts, even the mechanical, are gifts of God, at least in their natural part, and that in them, as though they were his own, or found out and produced by his own industry, man must not glory, but must ascribe them to God, ask them of him, and spend them in his service. So Rupert on chap. 35 of Exodus, at the end.
13. SEE THAT YE KEEP MY SABBATH: FOR IT IS A SIGN BETWEEN ME AND YOU.—Abulensis and Lipomanus think that mention of the sabbath is here interjected for this reason, namely, lest the Hebrews should think it lawful for them to make the tabernacle on the sabbath day. But this reason is too narrow, and Scripture gives no indication of it.
I say, then, that God here repeats the precept of the sabbath alone, and confirms it anew by the added penalty of death, both because this ceremonial law of the sabbath was the chief one, recurring every week, and because the sabbath was above all the public and solemn worship of God; whence he adds: “For it is a sign between me and you,” as if to say: Because the sabbath is a sign that you are a people to me, and I am a God to you, in whose honour and out of obedience to whom you keep the seventh day, namely the sabbath, in sacred rest, as it were protesting that I am the creator of all things that were made in six days, and that I on this seventh day ceased from all my work; and therefore you must strive that on that day the mind by prayer and other pious exercises may rest in God, here by grace, and in the future by glory.
THAT YOU MAY KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD WHO SANCTIFY YOU,—who, that is, apply you to my worship, and as it were dedicate and consecrate you to myself by this festival.
14. FOR IT IS HOLY TO YOU,—as if to say: The sabbath is to you a solemn festival, dedicated to the holy worship of God. See Deut. 5:12.
HE THAT SHALL DO ANY WORK IN IT, HIS SOUL (that is, his life) SHALL PERISH OUT OF THE MIDST OF HIS PEOPLE,—as if to say: He who by labouring violates the rest of the sabbath shall be punished with death by the sentence of the judge, if the crime, namely the violation of the sabbath, be established; if it be not established, then that man will be punished with death in other ways, God avenging, whether by men as though by chance, yet this chance being intended and directed by God, as I said in chap. 21:13, or by other creatures that are God’s ministers, and, what is greatest, he will perish for ever in hell, as guilty of a most grievous crime.
15. THE SABBATH IS A REST, etc.—The Hebrew is, shabbat shabbaton. The Hebrews by shabbaton, that is, little sabbath, understand a small addition to the sabbath; for since they do not know precisely the moment at which the sabbath begins, to satisfy it they begin it an hour earlier, and end it an hour later, and this little time they think is called shabbaton, that is, little sabbath. But this is a scruple too narrow and anxious. Our Interpreter therefore has rendered and pointed it excellently, and others everywhere follow him.
17. IT IS AN EVERLASTING COVENANT BETWEEN ME AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.—He calls the sabbath a covenant, that is, the condition of the covenant. The Septuagint render, it is an everlasting testament or covenant in me and the children of Israel, that is, that the children of Israel may rest in me, namely in God, and in the vision and enjoyment of God, by the eternal rest which I have promised them, says St. Augustine, Question 139. But this sense does not correspond to the Hebrew, in which there is not in, but between; and so the preposition in, which the Septuagint have, must be explained as between.
AND IN THE SEVENTH HE CEASED FROM WORK.—In Hebrew vayinnafash, that is, he took breath from labour, and by taking breath rested. Scripture speaks of God in a human manner.
18. AND THE LORD GAVE TO MOSES, etc. TWO TABLES OF TESTIMONY (that is, of the Decalogue or law, which is a testimony of the divine will, namely of what God wills to be done by us), OF STONE, WRITTEN WITH THE FINGER OF GOD,—with his own finger, that is, by himself, not by man or angel; it is an enallage, of which I spoke on verse 3. Note: he gave, not as though God had not given the Decalogue before: for he implanted this law in all with nature, as St. Irenaeus teaches, book 4, chap. 30; Cyril, book 1 on John, chap. 1; St. Jerome on chap. 24 of Isaias; and On Flight from the World, chap. 3. But he gave it anew, written on tables of stone, to avert the forgetfulness which crept in from men’s neglect and sloth of it, and to sharpen minds by this sign to a firm and close keeping of the law; and therefore he gave it inscribed not on paper but on stone.
Now that this stone was precious, as being formed and destined for this divine writing, we may conjecture. The Hebrews hold that it was sapphire, as Lyranus testifies on Exod. 24:12. Where Abulensis testifies the same of the same, and rightly refutes them when they say that Moses, when these sapphire tables were broken on account of the people’s sin, gathered up their fragments and enriched himself thereby. That these tables were of sapphire is expressly taught also by Suidas under the word Moses, St. Epiphanius, book On the Twelve Gems, Anastasius of Nicaea, Question 38 on Holy Scripture, and Nilus the Metropolitan, On the Theory of Stones. It favours this that God, when about to give the law to Moses, appeared with a sapphire footstool, chap. 24, verse 10. See what I noted on sapphire there, and Apoc. 21:19. But nothing certain can be determined on this matter, since Scripture does not express the kind of stone. As for what the Chaldee and the Rabbis relate, that the sapphire of the tables of the law was hewn out of the sapphire throne of God, Exod. 24:12, that is a gross fable of theirs.
Mystically, these tables signified the tables of the heart, on which the commandments of God are to be written, 2 Cor. 3:3 and following.
Isidore, Abulensis, Hugh, Lipomanus, and the Hebrews, and others everywhere, note that on the first table were written the precepts which regard God and the love and worship of God, which the Hebrews number as four; for they divide the first precept into two, the precepts namely of a twofold charity: Worship one God, and, Thou shalt not make a graven thing or idol. Catholics, however, join these two into one, and number only three for the first table (of which Deut. 5). In the second the neighbour and the love of the neighbour, which the Hebrews number as six: for they join the last two precepts, concerning the desire of a wife and of another’s goods, into one; but Catholics divide them better, and consequently number seven precepts of the second table. The compendium, therefore, of both tables and of the whole law is: “Love God, and love thy neighbour,” as Christ teaches.