In Exodus 31:3 “I have filled him with divine spirit, with ability, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft, to devise artistic designs.”
The first person the Bible mentions as being filled with the spirit of God is an artist. Bezalel will help make the tabernacle, that forerunner of the temple that Solomon will one day build in Jerusalem and also the first image of the coming Messiah: “The Word became flesh,” John writes, “and lived [lit. tabernacled] among us” (John 1:14).
Everything Bezalel and others fashion will spring from God’s imagination. Only this time, humanity assists in creation, putting into three-dimensional form what is, at the beginning only in God’s mind. This is a tremendous honor and the fact that Bezalel is filled with the Spirit of God to do it immediately stresses the importance God places not only on the tabernacle, but the act of creation itself.
It is a common thought that art is simply a fringe benefit of society, something that occurs when there is enough leisure time left over from the essentials to produce it. The Bible knows nothing of this sort of thinking. God’s art is right in the middle of everything, not on the margins, and is in fact what is essential to Israel’s existence and identity. Without this art there is no tabernacle and therefore no presence of God among the people of Israel.
On page after page we hear about basins and altars and lamp stands and tables – all of them beautiful as well as functional. God himself has designed and specifically appointed artist to build the place he will dwell to be composed as art. These are not human ideas they are divine. I for one will never look at art the same.
God Bless,
Deacon Jim
(Renovare’ Spiritual Formation Bible, NSRV, 1989 Harper Collins
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