The library · Edition and sources
Philo: Allegorical Interpretation, III
C. D. Yonge (1854–1855) · Translated text with edition notes
Section XXXI
XXXI. (95) On which account God also calls Bezaleel by name, and says that "He will give him wisdom and knowledge, and that He will make him the builder and the architect of all the things which are in his Tabernacle;"
{45}
{#ex 31:2.}
that is to say, of all the works of the soul, when he had up to this time done no work which any one could praise--we must say, therefore, that God impressed this figure also on the soul, after the fashion of an approved coin. And we shall know what the impression is if we previously examine the interpretation of the name. (96) Now, Bezaleel, being interpreted, means God in his shadow. But the shadow of God is his word, which he used like an instrument when he was making the world. And this shadow, and, as it were, model, is the archetype of other things.
For, as God is himself the model of that image which he has now called a shadow, so also that image is the model of other things, as he showed when he commenced giving the law to the Israelites, and said, "And God made man according to the image of God."
{46}
{#ge 1:26.}
as the image was modelled according to God, and as man was modelled according to the image, which thus received the power and character of the model.
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