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Exodus 35

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1 And Moses collected all the assembly of the children of Israel, and said to them, These are the things which Jehovah has commanded, to do them.

2 Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a sabbath of rest to Jehovah: whoever does work on it shall be put to death.

3 Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your dwellings upon the sabbath day.

4 And Moses spoke to all the assembly of the children of Israel, saying, This is the word which Jehovah has commanded, saying,

5 Take from among you a heave-offering to Jehovah: every one whose heart [is] willing, let him bring it, Jehovah's heave-offering -- gold, and silver, and copper,

6 and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and byssus, and goats' [hair],

7 and rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and acacia-wood,

8 and oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil, and for the incense of fragrant drugs;

9 and onyx stones, and stones to be set for the ephod, and for the breastplate.

10 And all who are wise-hearted among you shall come and make all that Jehovah has commanded:

11 the tabernacle, its tent, and its covering, its clasps, and its boards, its bars, its pillars, and its bases;

12 the ark, and its staves; the mercy-seat, and the veil of separation;

13 the table and its staves, and all its utensils, and the shewbread;

14 and the lamp-stand for the light, and its utensils, and its lamps, and the oil for the light;

15 and the altar of incense, and its staves; and the anointing-oil, and the incense of fragrant drugs; and the entrance-curtain at the entrance of the tabernacle;

16 the altar of burnt-offering, and the copper grating for it, its staves, and all its utensils; the laver and its stand;

17 the hangings of the court, its pillars, and its bases, and the curtains of the gate of the court;

18 the pegs of the tabernacle, and the pegs of the court, and their cords;

19 the garments of service, to do service in the sanctuary, the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments of his sons, to serve as priests.

20 And all the assembly of the children of Israel departed from before Moses.

21 And they came, every one whose heart moved him, and every one whose spirit prompted him; they brought Jehovah's heave-offering for the work of the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the holy garments.

22 And they came, both men and women; every one who was of willing heart brought nose-rings, and earrings, and rings, and bracelets, all kinds of utensils of gold: every man that waved a wave-offering of gold to Jehovah.

23 And every man with whom was found blue, and purple, and scarlet, and byssus, and goats' [hair], and rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, brought [them].

24 All they that offered a heave-offering of silver and copper brought Jehovah's heave-offering. And every one with whom was found acacia-wood for all manner of work of the service, brought [it].

25 And every woman that was wise-hearted spun with her hands, and brought what she had spun: the blue, and the purple, and the scarlet, and the byssus.

26 And all the women whose heart moved them in wisdom spun goats' [hair].

27 And the principal men brought the onyx stones, and the stones to be set, for the ephod, and for the breastplate;

28 and the spice, and the oil for the light, and for the anointing oil, and for the incense of fragrant drugs.

29 The children of Israel brought a voluntary offering to Jehovah, every man and woman whose heart prompted them to bring for all manner of work, which Jehovah, by the hand of Moses, had commanded to be done.

30 And Moses said to the children of Israel, See, Jehovah has called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah,

31 and he has filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship,

32 and to devise artistic things: to work in gold, and in silver, and in copper,

33 and in cutting of stones, for setting, and in carving of wood, to execute all artistic work;

34 and he has put in his heart to teach, he and Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan:

35 he has filled them with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work of the engraver, and of the artificer, and of the embroiderer, in blue, and in purple, in scarlet, and in byssus, and of the weaver, [even] of them that do every kind of work, and of those that devise artistic work

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 8990

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8990. 'And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl' means a representative sign of obedience. This is clear from the meaning of 'ear' as obedience, dealt with in 2542, 3869, 4551, 4652-4660; and from the meaning of 'piercing it with an awl' - that is to say, onto the door or onto the doorpost - as affixing, or at this point pledging forever, since it refers to obedience; and this is why the words follow, 'he shall serve him forever', that is, be obedient to him forever. From this it is evident that his master's piercing his ear with an awl, fixing it to the door or to the doorpost, is representative of obedience.

[2] The implications of all this may become clear from matters stated previously, where it has been shown that those imbued solely with truths and not with complementary good, that is, with faith and not with charity, are not free but slaves. Those whose actions spring from good or charity are free. They act from themselves; for actions that spring from good or charity spring from the heart, that is, from the will, and so from what is a person's own, since what exists in a person's will is his own and a deed springing from the will is said to go out of the heart. But those who are imbued solely with the truths of faith and not with the good of charity are slaves in comparison. They do not act from themselves since they have no good within themselves for actions to spring from; instead good is outside them, and they base their actions on it as often as they call it to mind. Those who stay like this through to the end of their lives remain permanently in this state after death. They cannot be brought to a state in which their actions spring from charitable affection, that is, from good; they can act only in obedience. In the Grand Man, which is heaven, they constitute those parts that serve more internal ones, like membranes and skins, 8977, 8980.

[3] All this shows what the situation is with faith alone, that is, with those who doctrinally place faith first and the good of charity second, indeed last. Those who place them in this order in the actual lives they lead are 'Hebrew slaves' in the representative sense; but those who place charity first, in the actual lives they lead, are free or 'the children of Israel' in the representative sense. From all this one may also conclude what the situation is with those who make salvation rest entirely on the truths of faith and not at all on the good of charity, that is to say, not at all on the actual life they lead. One may conclude that they cannot enter heaven; for good reigns in heaven, not truth without good, and truth is not truth, nor is faith faith, except with those imbued with good

[4] That his master's piercing his ear with an awl, fixing it to the door, is representative of obedience is also evident from the consideration that fixing his ear to the door means causing him to attend to the things commanded by his master who is in the room, that is, to hear him at all times and obey his instructions. At this point the things which good wills and commands are meant in the spiritual sense, for spiritual good is represented by the slave's master, 8981, 8986. Since 'the ear' means the hearing of obedience, there flows into human speech from an origin in the spiritual world the expression to tweak the ear, which stands for causing a person to pay attention and remember, and in like manner the expressions to hear and to hearken to someone, which stands for obeying him. For the inner meaning that very many words possess has sprung from correspondences from the spiritual world, as with expressions such as spiritual light and being enlightened by it which people use when speaking about matters of faith, and also spiritual fire and being animated by it when speaking about matters of love.

[5] The reason why piercing the ear was done with an awl was that 'an awl' has the same meaning as a pin or peg, namely affixing and joining onto, and in the spiritual sense pledging something. But an awl was a tool used by a servant, and therefore it served to represent the pledge of everlasting obedience by a slave. The meaning of 'a pin' or 'a peg' as affixing and joining onto is clear from the places where this object is mentioned, as in Isaiah 22:23; 33:20; 41:7; 54:2; Jeremiah 10:4; Exodus 27:19; 38:31; Numbers 3:37; 4:32.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.