Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Exodus 37-38
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 70
Key Verse
Exodus 38:2 — “And he made the horns thereof on the four corners of it; the horns thereof were of the same: and he overlaid it with brass.”
Devotional Thought
Bezaleel son of Uri, of the tribe of Judah, was a craftsman — not a preacher, not a prophet, but a man filled with the Spirit for the work of making things. In Exodus 37–38 we watch his hands at work: the ark of shittim wood overlaid with pure gold within and without, the mercy seat with its two cherubims beaten out of one piece, their wings spread on high and their faces toward the mercy seat. He builds the table, the candlestick with its almond-shaped bowls and knops, the incense altar, the brazen altar of burnt offering, the laver made from the lookingglasses of the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle. Aholiab of Dan works beside him, engraver and embroiderer, and the whole congregation contributes — twenty-nine talents of gold, a hundred talents of silver, seventy talents of brass, a bekah for every man from twenty years old and upward.
What strikes us is how much of this chapter is measurement and metal. Cubits and shekels, sockets and fillets, hooks and pins. This is not glamorous work, and yet verse 22 says Bezaleel “made all that the LORD commanded Moses.” Nothing was left undone, nothing improvised. The same God who thundered from Sinai cared about the width of a border and the weight of a socket. In mid-June, when the days are long and the garden needs tending and the ordinary tasks stack up, this is a quiet word: God is honored in faithful, measured, finished work. The women who gave their mirrors gave something that showed them themselves; God turned it into a basin for cleansing.
And notice where all this gold and brass was headed: toward a mercy seat. The ark was not built to be admired but to be the place where God would meet His people and speak with them. Every ring and stave existed so the ark could be carried, so that mercy could travel with a pilgrim people. The candlestick was made to give light; the altar to receive sacrifice; the laver to wash. All of it was for the sake of a people who would stumble and need forgiveness. Bezaleel’s careful work made a house for grace.
Psalm 70 puts a voice inside that house. “Make haste, O God, to deliver me.” David is poor and needy, hunted by those who say “Aha, aha,” and he does not pretend otherwise. He asks for speed — not because God is slow, but because he is desperate. And even in his urgency he prays for the joy of others: “Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee.” The tabernacle taught Israel that God dwells near; the psalm teaches us to run to Him when we are undone. The same LORD who measured out sockets and shekels is the help and deliverer who makes no tarrying.
Reflection
- Bezaleel built the ark with rings and staves so that mercy could be carried wherever God’s people went. What in your daily work or routine is quietly making room for grace to travel to someone else?
- David prays “make haste” while also praying that others would rejoice in God. When you are poor and needy, how does your prayer for yourself make room for the good of those around you?
Prayer
O LORD, Thou art our help and our deliverer; make haste unto us, for we are poor and needy. Thank You for the patient, measured work of Bezaleel and Aholiab, and for the mercy seat where You promised to meet Your people. Teach us to do faithfully the small, unglamorous tasks You set before us, and to give even our mirrors and our silver into Your service. When enemies rise and our hearts are confounded, turn them backward and let us not be ashamed. Let all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You, and let us say continually, Let God be magnified. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 70:1 — “MAKE HASTE, O GOD, TO DELIVER ME; MAKE HASTE TO HELP ME, O LORD.”