Exodus 31 Study Notes

31:1-11 The Israelites would construct the tabernacle and its furnishings by using a wide variety of skills that the Lord had supplied to the builders. Their calling and enabling came from the Lord by his Spirit. The terms for wisdom, understanding, and ability appear also in Pr 2:6. Like other matters in Exodus, these abilities to make beautiful objects involved the person’s “heart.” Every skilled artisan is more literally “everyone wise of heart,” which helps in recognizing that “wise” and “wisdom” in Proverbs refer to skills for living in relationships with other people and with God, even as wisdom here shows itself as skills needed for building the tabernacle. The Lord provided what people needed to make things that would be valuable to him and to other people. A fuller description appears in Ex 35:4-36:7.

31:12-13 Here again action leads to knowledge (see notes at 4:1-9; 6:6-8), but this time it is what the Israelites must do—observe my Sabbaths—that will lead to knowing the identity of the Lord and of themselves. The term translated consecrates you can also be translated “sets you apart” or “sanctifies you.” The Israelites were to have a unique identity, distinct from other nations and closely associated with the Lord.

31:14-15 Whoever profanes the Sabbath by working is in willful rebellion against the Lord. They are refusing to recognize his past provisions or to trust him for present and future provisions.

31:16-17 To observe the Sabbath would be a sign forever of the covenant between the Lord and the Israelites, reminding them of the Lord’s provision as the one who had made the heavens and the earth and as the one who had made Israel a new nation (16:24-30; 20:8-11). As part of their loyalty to the Lord, their Sovereign, the Israelites could participate in the rest he enjoyed.

31:18 The two tablets of the testimony contained the Ten Commandments and were to be placed inside the ark in the most holy place in the tabernacle to remind the people of the covenant that the Israelites had promised to keep (25:16).