What a blessed thought, too, is conveyed to the heart of the worker by the name

Bezaleel, "In the shadow of God". There is the place where wisdom, knowledge and

understanding are first received, and ever after maintained--"Not by might, nor by

power, but My Spirit, saith the Lord." There is also a note of instruction in the name

Aholiab, "The tent of my Father". Paul stresses the necessity to be occupied with "God's

building" when building upon the one foundation: all else passes away in smoke and fire

(I Cor. 3:). Just as the tabernacle imaged the person of the Lord when He was made

flesh and "tabernacled" among men (John 1: 14), so we find the "shadowing" suggested in

Luke 1: 35: "The power of the Highest shall overshadow thee."

The second half of Exod. 31: is devoted to the question of the sabbath, so that, in

some sense, we have in this chapter the six days' work (1-11), and the one day sabbath

(12-18). This, as the structure shows, falls exactly into correspondence with one special

week recorded in Exod. 24: 15-18:--

The placing of the covenant of the sabbath immediately after the appointment of the

workers of the tabernacle would be a reminder that even work for God must be allowed

to crowd out worship. We may all profit by this lesson.

We will now look into the teaching of Scripture regarding the sabbath.

In the first place it is important to remember that not only is there the weekly sabbath

day enjoined upon Israel, but that a system of sevens, from days to years, is found in

Scripture. Creation is stamped with the number seven. In the Hebrew of Gen. 1: 1 we

find seven words, Bereshith bara elohim eth hashshamayin beth haerets--and

twenty-eight letters, 7*4. This cannot be shown in English because in that language

separate letters for the sounds "th", "sh", &100:, must be used.

The present creation is introduced by the word of God: "And God said." In this

phrase there are ten Hebrew letters having the following numerical equivalents: Vav 6,

Yod 10, Aleph 1, Mem 40, Rosh 200, Aleph 1, Lamed 30, He 5, Yod 10, Mem 40. These

figures total 343, which is 7*7*7, or raised to the superlative. If, moreover, the reader

will look at this series he will see that exactly seven different letters are used.

The present creation occupies a double set of three days followed by a seventh rest.

These sets of three perfectly correspond with each other:--