Exodus 35:30-34 And Moses said to the children of Israel, See, the LORD has called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur… Under Jehovah's merciful providence even the captivity of Israel had a sunny side. Egypt, then at the noon of her civilization, was pre-eminently the home of science, art, and culture. For both rede-craft and hand-crafts her children were world-famed. The Israelites were educated in a school of fine arts as well as in brickyards. Not all their sons and daughters toiled in clay, or ate only cheapest bread and onions. Many were house and body servants to Egyptian ladies and gentlemen. The brighter and more dexterous learned trades; and though slaves, served their masters as skilled mechanics or workers in art products. Not a few secured first-class knowledge in stamping, chasing, and various branches of metal-work, in the lapidary and glyptic art, as well as in weaving, dyeing, carpentry, and leather-dressing. In addition to their theoretical knowledge and practical handicraft, they had pretty full sets of models and masterpieces of mechanism. The keepsakes and souvenirs borrowed from the Egyptians were easily copied and manufactured, when raw material from mine and flock, sea and soil, in the Sinaitic peninsula were put to account. It was not entirely a "horde of slaves" that went up out of Egypt. Between the mob of ignorant freedmen and the princes, statesmen, and leaders inspired of God, stood another class of men: these were metallargists, jewellers, engravers, architects, and weavers possessing that skill, born of hand and brain working in harmony, without which a high civilization and the order of cities are impossible. (W. E. Griffis.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Moses said unto the children of Israel, See, the LORD hath called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; |
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