Bezaleel

Your Top Five

If you were asked to name the people in scripture who brought you the greatest inspiration, who would be on your list? Of course, Jesus is first! He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead and worthy of preeminence in all things. After Christ, I suspect that if we were to continue down the list we’d see familiar names: Peter, Moses, David, Paul, Noah, Esther, John, Joshua, etc… At some point it begins to look like a Sight & Sound performance schedule.

I’m sure that there would be other lesser known names if a group of believers of any size were asked to continue with this exercise. Maybe Rahab, Ruth, Elijah, Mary (pick any Mary), and many others would make it there. This would be a nice ice breaker for a group: Name a Bible character that inspires you that was not the subject of a Sight & Sound play!

Among my top five inspiring Biblical figures, I would add Bezaleel to the list. He would come right before Jashobeam the Hachmonite who slew three hundred men with a spear – a good story for another time¹. Bezaleel? Yes “buh-ZAL-ee-uhl” or if you’re Hebrew you might say “buh-tsal-EL”. Maybe he lags in popularity simply because his name exceeds the two syllable maximum established earlier, but it’s more likely because he is only mentioned eight times across three books of the Bible: Exodus, and 1 & 2 Chronicles.

We should be careful not to read into the text what isn’t there and it’s easy to do that for people and topics that are scarcely mentioned. Being sensitive to that, every word of God is pure, perfect, and placed there for us to be admonished, instructed and encouraged. Bezaleel’s life as recorded in the Bible is there for precisely that purpose. He helps us understand that the call of God on our life extends far beyond the traditional basket of pastor, missionary, evangelist and the wives of the same. Can you be called of God to develop a useful, profitable skill that doesn’t include full-time service in the ministry? Bezaleel’s example to us is a resounding yes.

Tombstone Intrigue

If you traveled back to 970 BC in Jerusalem, you could have been an eye witness to King Solomon’s magnificent 1,000 animal sacrifice on the eve of receiving the gift of supernatural wisdom from God. He had just assumed the throne after the death of his father David and had made the wise decision to make the God of Israel the God of his own life. Clearly God was pleased with his decision. I’m not sure what value 1,000 animals might have had in ages past, but even with a modern butcher’s valuation for the meat alone, this was an extravagant sacrifice.

While there is much to learn from Solomon’s life from this account, an astute observer might notice a small commemoration to Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur as the creator of the brasen altar where these bulls, sheep, and goats were sacrificed unto the Lord (2 Chron 1:5). This was the altar where Solomon and all of Israel sought unto the Lord before the tabernacle. This was the altar where Solomon used his leadership as king to establish a pattern of giving sacrificially before God who is worthy. Oh yeah, and this guy named Bezaleel was the one who made it.

Monuments, memorials, tombstones, and grave markers are designed to generate curiosity among the living of what may have transpired in the past. Pearl Harbor houses monuments to all ships lost at sea, the men that lived and died therein, and the story of how it all happened. There are several old family cemeteries tucked away in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia where you can appreciate simple epitaphs written about people who would have otherwise already been forgotten long ago.

We’re curious about these things because we’re curious about other people. Whether we read, watch, or re-enact them, humans love stories about other humans. A monument or memorial may excite a special kind of this curiosity because we all wonder how we too will be remembered. Will there be a plaque written about you one day? How crowded might your funeral be? Or soberingly, when will you be thought of for the last time?

At this moment in the reign of Solomon, roughly 480 years have passed since Bezaleel melted the copper and zinc into the brass used for the tabernacle’s altar. I can’t think of anything that I’ve ever said or done that will last that long. The house I live in, as nice and well built as it may be, will be a pile of rubble in a few hundred years. Imagine how many times this altar was packed up and moved along with all the other components of the tabernacle. It’s traveled hundreds of miles to end up here in Jerusalem, still functional and still looking good. This altar wasn’t made by the Chinese only to be broken the first minute on the moving truck. It was made by Bezaleel.

This story is a foreshadowing of an important lesson Bezaleel can teach us nearly 3,500 years from the time he lived. His work was high quality – maybe even the highest quality. If something was stamped with “Made by Bezaleel” you knew it was built to last. This man’s workshop was his calling.

When taking time to appreciate the memory of his life, we shouldn’t ignore that his father and grandfather also appeared when the credits of his life scrolled by. He was the son of Uri, son of Hur. No man succeeds in a vacuum. If we are products of our environment and upbringing, we owe much of our success to our parents and ancestors for building the platform from which we jump. I imagine Uri probably spent many evenings driving Bezaleel to blacksmithing practice, purchased his first tools, or allowed him to work on his passion at the expense of labor he might have otherwise given to the household raising him.

Bezaleel’s brasen altar served as the fulcrum in the story of Israel’s turn from war with her neighbors to a golden age of peace, wisdom and prosperity. Other world leaders would be enamored with Solomon’s splendor. Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and Proverbs would be added to the canon of scripture which are settled forever in heaven. Why was it important to God in this moment to ensure that Bezaleel received credit for his work?

You Don’t Have to be Moses to be Remembered

Moses and Bezaleel were contemporaries at a time when Israel’s population hovered between two and three million people. Baby Moses was born into a spotlight that never stopped shining. He was saved out of the bulrushes to be raised by Pharaoh’s daughter. Exiled from the Egyptian palace for murder, Moses would famously meet God at the burning bush and be tasked with leading Israel out of Egypt and beyond. He has cameos in the New Testament at the Mount of Transfiguration and is mentioned all throughout the Bible. It makes sense that God would remember Moses at this moment in history.

But if you feel lost in Moses’ shadow, you’re not alone! I often feel that there is no way I can produce a life as significant as the life of Moses. Where is my burning bush? What am I supposed to do with my life? Will I be remembered like Moses for anything of significance?

During pharmacy school, I attended a church in Hudson Falls, NY that had a plaque on the wall in the sanctuary with the following quote: “Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.” Maybe you are familiar with the poem that this quote is based upon. I saw it every week from the pews and while it’s actually not a bad poem in many respects, I’ve personally found it to be quite depressing.

What does your typical day look like? You will eat, sleep, work out, clean, engage in sports, hang out with friends, go to work, go to church, read your Bible, pray, etc… Of all those things (which may vary based on age, gender, and season of life) was it done for Christ? No? Then it won’t last, at least according to that poem. Only the Bible reading, praying, and church attendance mean anything at all and the rest of your life is just a waste.

Recently someone mentioned to me that they won’t watch a sports game on TV because it’s wasted time and not done for the kingdom of God. While I find that sentiment admirable and I commend anyone who chooses to spend their time as intentionally as possible, is that really how we should live? From here, it’s easy to imagine the victorious Christian life as possible only within a monastery.

The reality is that almost everything we do, no matter how mundane, can be done for the kingdom. That’s why Paul admonishes the Corinthian church saying, “whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” It’s important to get that right especially for the part of our life where we spend the most time – working.

Bezaleel’s life teaches us that we can spend 40-60 hours every week working during our careers and that can matter quite a bit for the cause of Christ. In 2 Chronicles 1, Moses gets the first mention for building the tabernacle, but in verse 5, Bezaleel gets his turn for the work done on the brasen altar that was now being used by Solomon centuries later. And what was it that Bezaleel accomplished? He wasn’t raised in an Egyptian palace, he didn’t hear God’s voice from a burning bush, nor did he appear on the Mount of Transfiguration. Simply put, he was remembered for being very good at his secular, non-ministry job.

It’s true that you can’t take it with you when you go, but you can leave something valuable behind. There are very few things that will survive our deaths for any length of time, but reputation and legacy can be notable exceptions. 3,500 years after his death, we’re still talking about Bezaleel simply because he chose to treat his career as a calling from God and apply himself to it for God’s glory.

Exceptional Effort Equals Eternal Enrichment

“Hey Dan guess what!? I’m disabled!” I heard these words standing behind a pharmacy counter and couldn’t understand why a grown man would be excited to say that to me. This customer was overjoyed that the government had decreed that he no longer had to work for a weekly check. This attitude would have been mocked derisively for most of human history, but in 21st century America it is cause for celebration. This man was deceived and his joy in idleness was quickly replaced with the bitterness and discontent that oozes from the bedsores of the lazy.

If by contrast you’ve cleared the low bar of showing up to work consistently to provide for your needs and do good in the world, that is an achievement of its own amid the cultural backdrop of popular lazy freeloading. However it wasn’t showing up and punching the clock that made the difference in Bezaleel’s life. It was the exceptional quality of what Bezaleel achieved that earned him this mention in scripture.

The construction of the brasen altar would require turning piles of iron-like acacia wood and nearly 5,000 pounds of brass into something with exceptional beauty and durability. God’s instruction to Moses in Exodus 27 highlighted the dimensions of the square altar, the decorative horns, the brass overlay, and the utensils and paraphernalia required to operate the altar (grates, basons, shovels, firepans, rings, etc…). And last, but not least, its design and style needed to match what God had shown Moses on Mount Sinai. Assuming Bezaleel led a team of multiple people, anywhere from 3-9 months of dedicated labor would have been needed to pull this off, and that assumes that no “do-over” caliber mistakes were made.

The process of overlaying a sculpted wooden structure in brass in Biblical times would have started with melting copper and zinc into poured ingots over charcoal fired furnaces. The ingots would then have been beaten on an anvil repeatedly to flatten them out. Because brass becomes more brittle as it cools, great care had to be taken to heat it up periodically before continuing to flatten it into a thick foil-like shape and thickness. This annealing process would be repeated continuously until enough brass metal sheets had been produced for the entire project. These layers then had to be folded, crimped, tacked, nailed or glued with animal based adhesive to overlay the wooden structure.

In modern days, brass plating can be done over a small area in 20-30 minutes with a blowtorch, a drill, and a bronze wire brush. But when Bezaleel was sweating over his furnace and contemplating how best to wrap a two dimensional brass sheet over a three dimensional acacia horn, his only advantage was the years of practice, toil, and frustration that had transformed him into a master craftsman. As Beethoven achieved similar transcendency in his field of music, he would be quoted as saying, “Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine.” Beethoven may not have had the same motivations as Bezaleel, but he did accurately identify the same target on which both men had set their aim.

The boundary of human knowledge and discovery looks like a smooth line from the vantage of the uninitiated. But as you creep closer to the edge through a process of continuous learning, the smooth line turns out to be full of gaps. Each gap represents some new discovery that is accessible to you alone because your intense curiosity and drive to learn brought you close enough to see it. Surely this is what Solomon meant when he said, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.” I wonder if he might have had Bezaleel and his brasen altar in mind when he wrote that.

The effort we pour into our career and field of study (whatever it might be) over the 40-50 years of our working adult life can have lasting eternal significance. It did for Bezaleel and we remember him today because he strove for the mastery in his work.

A Worthy Calling

The LEGO movie introduced the somewhat silly concept of a “master builder,” an extraordinary LEGO character who could look at any pile of LEGO bricks and determine how to build essentially anything they wanted from those starting materials. No instruction manuals required. For some terrible reason this is what I think of now (thanks Warner Bros.) whenever I read 1 Corinthians 3:10 “According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon…” Paul saw himself as a craftsman, a “masterbuilder” if you will and his calling was to preach to the gentiles, build up people, and ultimately the church of God.

It is a tragic mistake to assume that only those called into the ministry can dedicate their work to and for the Lord. While Bezaleel’s effort and skill were a necessary component for his eventual memorial at the time of Solomon’s offering, it was equally necessary for him to consciously decide that his work was dedicated to God.

Everything needed to build the tabernacle was to be an offering of every man that had decided to give willingly. This included the gold, silver, precious stones, and even the necessary labor. I’m sure there were other craftsmen among the Israelites whose skills rivaled Bezaleel’s who chose not to participate. Their careers and skills were for their benefit alone. Although we don’t know when or how it happened, Bezaleel made a conscious choice that he was going to work every day for the Lord and not for his customers.

If you too were to make that same decision of the heart to go to work for the Lord even though the sign on the building says otherwise, what might happen? The answer will be different for every person. But as the days, weeks, months, and even years scroll by at the workplace, I am motivated by the life of Bezaleel to continue to push to the boundaries of my work and find areas in which God has allowed me to be exceptional. You never know when God will have something great for you to do because you dedicated your work to him.

In a former life, I had dabbled in freelance logo design for small businesses. The problem was that nobody wanted to pay for a good logo. I can understand their perspective. “If it only took you six hours of work, why should I pay you $1,500?” was the common refrain. What is often missed though is that the artist who can draw a great logo in six hours has probably invested six years developing his craft. There wouldn’t be anyone to hire for the job if nobody invested the effort to learn to draw logos in the first place and that’s how the fee is derived.

Similarly, imagine how pointless it would have been for someone who had never swung a blacksmithing hammer or ignited charcoal in a forge to volunteer to build this brasen altar. I’ve often heard that God doesn’t call the qualified, instead he qualifies the called. But scripture seems to contradict this cliche at every turn. God called Bezaleel because he was qualified, Timothy was chosen because of his reputation, Paul was the best educated Pharisee in the law, David slew the lion and the bear before his anointing, and the list goes on and on.

A career outside of “the ministry” is a worthy calling. You have not been left behind simply because you are not a pastor or a missionary. God can call you to any specific work if you are listening and willing. That’s what happened to Bezaleel.