Exodus 31
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Summary
Artists and artisans among the Israelites will be called and inspired to beautify the tabernacle. The Lord commands Israel to keep the Sabbath holy. If the Sabbath is desecrated, the death penalty is enacted. The Lord writes the commandments upon the tablets of stone and gives them to Moses.
Commentary
Bible Central Commentary
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Historical Commentaries
Many of the commentaries below are in the public domain and were authored over 100 years ago. In many cases, they do not reflect the findings of modern scholarship, but they may be helpful for understanding the history of biblical scholarship.
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Historical Settings
Time
*All Dates Are Approximate, according to the narrative of the Bible. These dates may reflect literary significance as opposed to the precise dates of history.
See Biblical Chronology- 1446 BC
Further Reading
Book of Mormon Central, “Why Would Pahoran Not Allow the Law to Be Amended? (Alma 51:3),” KnoWhy 159 (August 5, 2016).
Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Moroni Use Temple Imagery While Telling the Brother of Jared Story? (Ether 3:20),” KnoWhy 237 (November 23, 2016).
Frank Moore Cross Jr., “The Priestly Tabernacle in the Light of Recent Research,” in The Temple in Antiquity: Ancient Records and Modern Perspectives, ed. Truman G. Madsen (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1984), 91–106.
L. Michael Morales, “The Tabernacle: Mountain of God in the Cultus of Israel,” in Ancient Temple Worship: Proceedings of The Expound Symposium 14 May 2011, ed. Matthew B. Brown, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Stephen D. Ricks, and John S. Thompson (Orem, UT: The Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2014), 27–70.
Donald W. Parry, “Sinai as Sanctuary and Mountain of God,” in By Study and Also by Faith, ed. John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: FARMS, 1990), 1:482–500.
Noel B. Reynolds, “The Israelite Background of Moses Typology in the Book of Mormon,” BYU Studies 44, no. 2 (2005):4-23.
John S. Thompson, “The Context of Old Testament Temple Worship: Early Ancient Egyptian Rites,” in Ascending the Mountain of the Lord: Temple, Praise, and Worship in the Old Testament, ed. Jeffery R. Chadwick, Matthew J. Grey, and David Rolph Seely (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2013), 156–183.
Bruce T. Verhaaren, “Ten Commandments,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 vols. (New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1992), 4:1469–1470.
Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible
Matthew Henry (1706)
Commentary on the Bible
Adam Clarke (1831)
Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable
Thomas Constable
Rashi’s Commentary
Rashi (Shlomo Yitzchaki)
Notes on the Bible
Albert Barnes (1834)
Exposition of the Entire Bible
John Gill (1746–63)
Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch (1857–78)
Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible
John Wesley (1754–65)