What Does Exodus 35:31 Mean?
And he has filled him with the breath of God, in wisdom, in discernment, and in knowledge, and in all manner of work.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And he hath filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship;THE KEY
God’s breath becomes visible not only as inward inspiration, but as wisdom that takes shape in skilled work.
THE MEANING
God’s breath fills you with wisdom, understanding, and knowledge that reach into what your hands can make. The work of your hands can carry that living breath into form.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that spiritual life and practical making belong to separate worlds: wisdom from God’s breath reaches all the way into the work of the hands.
THE ROOT
חָכְמָה
ḥokhmāh
GROWS FROM
ח־כ־ם
ḥ-k-m
To be wise or skilled; to have capable understanding.
The English “wisdom” can sound purely mental, but חָכְמָה (ḥokhmāh, wisdom or skill) also names practical ability. Here it leads directly into workmanship: discernment is already capable of taking form.
ALSO GROWS
ḥākām: A person known for wisdom or practical skill.
חָכָם
This root can describe both a wise person and a capable maker, so wisdom here includes the ability to do skilled work.
ḥokhmāh: Wisdom; practical skill or capability.
חָכְמָה
Its place beside “workmanship” shows that this wisdom reaches beyond thought into making.
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
ר־ו־ח
r-w-ḥ
To blow; moving air, breath.
רוּחַ (ruach, breath or wind) is the same Hebrew word that English renders as “spirit,” “wind,” and “breath.” That unity places God’s presence in living movement and animation, right alongside a person’s capacities to perceive and make.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Wind or moving air.
רוּחַ
Genesis 8:1 uses the same word for wind, letting movement remain audible beneath “spirit of God.”
ruach: Breath that animates a living body.
רוּחַ
Ezekiel 37:5 uses ruach for breath; here the same word carries God’s living breath into a person’s understanding and craft.
THE PATTERN
God’s breath becomes visible through distinct capacities, including wisdom, knowledge, and skilled work.
And I have filled him with the breath of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of work.He was a widow's son of the branch of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a carver in bronze. And he was filled with craft, and with discernment, and with perception to work every work in bronze. And he came to king Solomon, and did all his work.But the showing of the breath is given to each one, for what carries us together. For to one is given through the breath the word of wisdom, and to another the word of knowledge by the same breath;THE THREAD
He was a widow's son of the branch of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a carver in bronze. And he was filled with craft, and with discernment, and with perception to work every work in bronze. And he came to king Solomon, and did all his work.The same Hebrew words חָכְמָה (ḥokhmāh, wisdom or skill), בִּינָה (bināh, understanding), and דַּעַת (daʿat, knowledge) appear together here in a sentence about brasswork. “Knowledge” is rendered “cunning” and is directed toward making, showing how these capacities take material form.
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