Shemot (Exodus): Pekudei > Ch 36 - Ch 39

Craftsmen create the Mishkan & the Garments as G-d has commanded and Moses blesses them

  • The people brought more than enough material, so Moses asked them to stop bringing it.
  • Bezalel, Oholiab and every wise hearted man into whose heart the Lord had given wisdom came to work on the Mishkan and constructed the Mishkan and the garments for the kohanim exactly to specifications stated by G-d (see chapter 25-28)
  • They have created all of the following:
    • Tent and all its furnishings its clasps, its planks, its bars, its pillars and its sockets
    • Covering of rams' skins dyed red, covering of tachash skins, and the screening dividing curtain,
    • Ark of the Testimony and its poles and the ark cover
    • Table, all its implements and the showbread
    • Pure menorah, its lamps, the lamps to be set in order and all its implements, and the oil for the lighting
    • Golden altar, the anointing oil and the incense, and the screen of the entrance to the tent,
    • Copper altar and its copper grating, its poles and all its implements, the washstand and its base,
    • Hangings of the courtyard, its pillars and sockets, and the screen for the gate of the courtyard, its ropes and its pegs, and all the implements for the service of the Mishkan, of the Tent of Meeting
    • Meshwork garments for the service in the Holy, the holy garments for Aaron the Kohen [Gadol] and his sons' garments for serving [as kohanim].
  • Moses saw the entire work, and lo! they had done it-as the Lord had commanded, so had they done. So Moses blessed them.


The amount of gold, silver & copper used to build the Mishkan


 
Rashi Commentary

  • talents Heb. כִּכָּר, sixty manehs. The maneh of the Holy was double [the normal maneh]. Hence, the talent [mentioned here] was [i.e., equaled] one hundred twenty [ordinary] manehs [twice the normal talent], and the maneh was twenty-five selas. Thus, a talent of the Holy was three thousand shekels. Therefore, [the text] counted out in detail all the shekels that were less than three thousand, since they did not amount to a talent [and thus they had to be enumerated separately]. -[from Bech. 5a]
  • bekka Heb. בֶּקַע, lit., a split. This is the name of the weight of a half-shekel.
  • for six hundred three thousand, etc. This is how many the Israelites were. Their number equaled this [too] after the Mishkan was erected, [as appears] in the Book of Numbers [Num. 1:4]. Now too, when they donated to the Mishkan, this is how many they were. The number of the half-shekels of 600,000 [people] equals one hundred talents, each one the equivalent of three thousand shekels. How so? Six hundred thousand halves [of a shekel] equal three hundred thousand wholes, which equal one hundred talents. The [additional] 3,550 halves equal 1,775 shekels.