Exodus 31:1-5

"And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise skillful works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood, to work in all manner of workmanship."

Bezalel, it appears, was thus named as the general foreman of the entire construction project. The passage does not mean that Bezalel would actually do all of the work mentioned, by himself alone; nevertheless, he was inspired with God's Spirit with the perfect knowledge of how every portion of the whole was to be done, a knowledge which he would have been able to impart to helpers and assistants who might have been needed.

"I have called by name Bezalel ..." On occasion, when God especially needed a man for important assignments, he called him by name. Thus, on the Damascus road, he called, "Saul, Saul" (Acts 22:7). When Samuel was a child, God called "Samuel" three tinges (1 Samuel 3 and God even called "Cyrus," the ruler of Medo-Persia, generations before he was born (See Isaiah 45:1-7). God's thus calling certain persons "by name" seems to have been rare and reserved for those who gave extraordinary service in fulfilling the plans and purpose of Almighty God.

"The son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah ..." The reason for the ancestors being named seems to have been twofold. It stressed that Bezalel came of a faithful family, the Hur mentioned here having already been mentioned by Moses in Exodus 17:10, and in Exodus 24:20, occasions when Hur held up the hands of Moses and was left, along with Aaron, in charge of the people during Moses' absence. We find no agreement with scholars who reject the identification of this Hur in the ancestry of Bezalel with the man of the same name already mentioned twice by Moses in this same narrative. Dumaelow's claim that there is no evidence of this identity "beyond the similarity of names"[1] is incorrect, because when any historian mentions the same name three times in succession, it is mandatory to assume that the same person is meant each time. As Keil accurately discerned it:

"Bezalel was a grandson of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, who is mentioned in Exodus 17:10; Exodus 24:14, and was called to be the master-builder, to superintend the whole of the building and carry out the artistic work; consequently, he is not only invariably mentioned first (Exodus 35:30; Exodus 36:1-2), but in the accounts of the execution of the separate portions, he is mentioned alone (Exodus 32:1; Exodus 38:22)."[2]

A second reason for this inclusion of Bezalel's ancestry is seen in the identification of him with the tribe of Judah, the tribe through whom came Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world. In these two particulars: that he came of the tribe of Judah, and that he built the tabernacle, Bezalel stands as a type of the Christ who also came of Judah, and built the Church of which that ancient tabernacle itself was a type. "The name Bezalel means in the shadow of God."[3]

One other word about the ancestry of Bezalel. He is traced all the way back to Judah's son Pharez (of Tamar) in 1 Chronicles 4:1-4. On the basis of other men named Hur in the times of Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra 20:24; Nehemiah 3:9), Noth wrote, "This could suggest a post-exilic origin of the tradition."[4] There are no less than five Hur's in the Houston telephone directory now! And if Noth had known about that, he might have concluded that Exodus was written recently. One conclusion is just as reasonable as the other. Furthermore, we are not dealing in Exodus with "a tradition," but with divine history.

"I have filled him with the Spirit of God ..." This is exceedingly important in showing that human skills, dexterity, artistry, etc. are gifts of God, no less than that of prophecy. Also, Moses did not appoint this chief superintendent of the works of the tabernacle; God appointed him. It is evident also that Bezalel possessed personal abilities of great dimensions even before he received God's Spirit. This passage reminds us of Acts 6:3-6, where men full of wisdom and of the Holy Spirit were appointed to administer the charities of the Jerusalem church. Note again that God never appointed any man to a task without endowing him fully to enable the execution of it.