1And YHWH spoke to Moses, saying,
31:1. Bezalel. Bezalel is the first artist, and he is summoned by name. The irony is that immediately after this a work of art, the golden calf, is made! The special importance of the artist and his or her relationship to the work of art is conveyed as Aaron makes the calf (32:4) but then, when he has to explain it to Moses, speaks as if it somehow came to exist by itself: “I threw it into the fire, and this calf came out!”
Some have taken the name Bezalel to mean “in the shadow of God” (b
l ’l). To me it also intimates “in the image of God” (belem ’l
hîm) from the creation story (Gen 1:27). (On the absence of the letter mem, compare the name Noah being related to the root n
m, and the name Samuel being related to the root 
’l. See the comment on Gen 5:29.) And Bezalel is filled with the “spirit of God,” which also comes from the creation story (1:2). The allusions to creation are attractive because Bezalel, after all, as the great artist of the Torah, is the creative one, who fashions the Tabernacle and its contents, including the ark. Being creative is the ultimate imitatio Dei. And the conclusion of the account of the construction of the Tabernacle uses some of the same language as the conclusion of the creation account. (See the comment on Exod 39:32.)
2“See, I’ve called by name Bezalel, son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah.
3And I’ve filled him with the spirit of God in wisdom and in understanding and in knowledge and in every kind of work,
4to form conceptions to make in gold and in silver and in bronze
5and in cutting stone for setting and in cutting wood—for making things in every kind of work.
6And I: here, I’ve put Oholiab, son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, with him. And in the heart of every wise-hearted person I’ve put wisdom. And they’ll make everything that I’ve commanded you:
7the Tent of Meeting and the Ark of the Testimony and the atonement dais that is on it and all the equipment of the tent
8and the table and its equipment and the pure menorah and all its equipment and the incense altar
9and the burnt offering altar and all its equipment and the basin and its stand
10and the fabric clothes and the holy clothes for Aaron, the priest, and his sons’ clothes for functioning as priests
11and the anointing oil and the incense of fragrances for the Holy. According to everything that I’ve commanded you, they shall do.”
12And YHWH said to Moses, saying,
13“And you, speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘Just: you shall observe my Sabbaths, because it is a sign between me and you through your generations: to know that I, YHWH, make you holy.
31:13. Just. The force of this word here seems to be to say that the section preceding this tells what the skilled craftsmen will do, and what God will do, to produce the holy place and all the holy objects; and now it will be specified what the people must do to become holy themselves. Why just the Sabbath out of all the commandments? Because “it is a sign between me and you.” As the sign of the Noahic covenant is the rainbow and the sign of the Abrahamic covenant is circumcision, so the sign of the Israelite covenant is the Sabbath. A sign participates in the thing that it symbolizes. (Thus, at first a flag is just a country’s symbol, but later people will say, “I’d die for the flag!”) And so its fulfillment is of exceptional importance. The rainbow sign is provided by God, and so it is certain. The signs of the other two covenants must be performed by humans, and so they are commanded with extreme emphasis and strictness. Both declare that failure to perform the sign will result in “cutting off” (Gen 17:14; Exod 31:14).
14And you shall observe the Sabbath, because it is a holy thing to you. One who desecrates it shall be put to death. Because anyone who does work in it: that person will be cut off from among his people.
31:14,15. put to death. The extreme punishment of execution for violation of the Sabbath must be understood in the context of the singular importance of the Sabbath: as sign of the covenant and as imitatio Dei—see the previous comment. Also, as I discussed in my comments on Genesis 1, the special place of the Sabbath in the creation of the universe marks it as having cosmic significance as well as historical significance. Combining the cosmic with history, it sets the history of human events that begins with Genesis 1 in the context of the very nature of the universe. And it makes time holy. Thus this long list of holy objects concludes with this reminder that periods of time are holy as well. The Sabbath is thus so phenomenally important that a violation of the Sabbath bears an extraordinary punishment.
15Six days work shall be done, and in the seventh day is a Sabbath, a ceasing, a holy thing to YHWH. Anyone who does work in the Sabbath day shall be put to death.
16And the children of Israel shall observe the Sabbath, to make the Sabbath through their generations, an eternal covenant.
17Between me and the children of Israel it is a sign forever, because for six days YHWH made the skies and the earth, and in the seventh day He ceased and was refreshed.’”
31:17. refreshed. This verb occurs only twice in the Torah: here, referring to God’s Sabbath rest; and in Exod 23:12, where it refers to the Sabbath rest of “your maid’s son and the alien.” It is remarkable that the parallel cases are the son of a slave and an alien. And this comes in the middle of one of the most blatant cases of imitatio Dei in the Torah: humans are to cease on the Sabbath because God ceased creating on the Sabbath. This now conveys that every human participates in this divine phenomenon. One cannot rest but still require his or her slave to work. One cannot rest but still count on non-Israelites in the community to do the work.
18And when He finished speaking with him in Mount Sinai, He gave the two tablets of the Testimony to Moses, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God.
31:18. two tablets of the Testimony. There are two tablets of testimony/witness, and there must always be at least two witnesses to give testimony in law. And Moses names two witnesses, heaven and earth, concerning the people’s future at the end of the Torah (Deut 31:28; 32:1).