Bezaleel and Aholiab. Note—
I. THE FACT THAT THE LORD CHOSE MEN TO DO THE WORK. It might have been otherwise. As the people were requested of their free-will to provide the materials, so they might have been requested to provide the necessary artificers. But it is easy to see what differences and jealousies might have resulted, all to end in some unsatisfactory compromise. There was no difficulty as long as each one gave of his own decision; and what further difficulty then threatened to come, God immediately removed by himself selecting the men who were to carry out his designs. It is very likely that Bezaleel and Aholiab were not the men whom the people themselves would have chosen. So far as pure artistic originality was concerned they may have been excelled; for the possession in Israel of so much material for artistic and precious work seems to show that there must have been many with the ability requisite for such work. But God had his own principles of choice, his own purposes to serve; and it would appear in due time how wise God was in indicating certain men and not others for what needed to be done.
II. THE QUALIFICATIONS WITH WHICH GOD ENDOWED THEM. God, we may be sure, to some extent took them for what they were by nature. He always looks at the natural basis on which he proposes to build up some Divine work. But he did not leave them to their natural strength to carry out his designs. He did not leave them to toil onward to impressive results through many attempts which had to be forsaken as failures. Great works of art, which only too many spectators regard with but a glance, are to the artist memorials of weary and tantalising hours. Sir Joshua Reynolds said of one of his completed paintings, "there are ten under it, some better, some worse." Bezaleel and Aholiab were spared all such disappointments, all vain hunts after the unattainable ideal. A variety of words are used with respect to them, as if to signify how eminently and abundantly God had endowed them with all that was necessary for the task. Thus it was to be made plain to the then living generation and their successors that the tabernacle and its contents were in a very important sense the work of God. These things were to be sacred in every way: they were not to be criticised and compared, as if they were the outcome of art and man's device. Perhaps criticism did come, for fault-finders are numerous in every age; but the two chosen artificers needed not to trouble themselves about any complaining. And should we not all find it better if, instead of straining to do work for God in our own strength and wisdom—which must ever be a saddening failure as to spiritual results—we sought to be as tools directed by the wisdom of God? We have no right to complain if keen eyes discover the weak points in what is fashioned by our own skill; but if we are sure that God's Spirit is ruling in all we do for him, then we may meet complaints with a meek indifference.—Y.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR