A reader accustomed to the conventional distinction between the priestly and the political or the sacred and the secular struggles to find the proper calibration for a text like this:
The LORD spoke to Moses: ‘See, I have called by name Bezalel son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: and I have filled him with divine spirit, with ability, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, in every kind of craft. Moreover, I have appointed with him Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and I have given skill to all the skillful, so that they may make all that I have commanded you.’
The vocabulary of ‘religious’ endowment both anchors and saturates the text. A craftsman named Bezalel is called by means of divine speech directed to Moses. A divine spirit fills him. One expects here a prophet, a priest, a denizen of temple, tabernacle, or festal tent. Instead one finds a craftsman, a hands-on shaper of the most earthy materials.
The liturgical climax of Exodus, as liberated Hebrew slaves are briefed on the doxological gravity of their vocation, would not occur without Bezalel’s talented hands in the mix.
Modern religious language traffics in the by now well-smoothed clauses of ‘filling with the spirit’, ‘calling’, and the like. Bezalel, bent over a stone that needs to be cut at a 16-degree gradation to perfect nature’s blunt work, merits every syllable of such expressions and much more.
The Divine Artist has found in the son of Uri a kindred spirit, a coworker, an agent. An instinct for beauty not unlike God’s own.
Canter Bridge 
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