Parashat Vayakhel - The Golden Touch

What was made or plated with Gold?

1. IN THE VESSELS

1. The ark (Shemot 25:10-16)

An ark of shittim wood… you shall plate it with pure gold, inside and outside shall you plate it.

And you shall make upon it a rim of gold round about.

And you shall cast four rings of gold for it.

And you shall make poles of shittim wood, and plate them with gold.

2. The kaporet and the keruvim (Shemot 25:17-22)

And you shall make a kaporet of pure gold.

And you shall make two keruvim of gold, of beaten work shall you make them at the two ends of the kaporet.

3. The table (Shemot 25:23 and on)

You shall also make a table of shittim wood… and you shall plate it with pure gold.

And you shall make for it a rim of gold round about.

And you shall make a golden crown for its border round about.

And you shall make for it four rings of gold.

And you shall make the poles of shittim wood, and plate them with gold.

And you shall make its dishes, and its spoons, and its jars, and its bowels, used for pouring out of pure gold.

4. The candlestick (Shemot 25:31-40)

And you shall make a candlestick of pure gold; of beaten work shall the candlestick be made: its shaft and its branches, its bowls, its bulbs, and its flowers, shall be of the same.

Their bulbs and their branches shall be made of the same piece; all shall be one beaten work of pure gold.

And its tongs and its ashpans shall be of pure gold.

Of a talent of pure gold shall he make it, with all these vessels.

5. The incense altar (Shemot 30:1-10)

Shittim wood… And you shall plate it with pure gold, its top, and its sides round about, and its horns; and you shall make for it a rim of gold round about.

And you shall make the poles of shittim wood, and plate them with gold.

2. IN THE STRUCTURE OF THE MISHKAN

1. The boards of the Mishkan (Shemot 26:15-30)

And you shall plate the boards with gold, and make their rings of gold as places for the bars; and you shall overlay the bars with gold.

2. The pillars of the parokhet (Shemot 26:32)

And you shall hang it upon four pillars of shittim wood overlaid with gold; their hooks shall be of gold.

3. The pillars of the screen of the door of the Ohel (Shemot 26:37)

And you shall make for the screen five pillars of shittim wood, and plate them with gold, and their hooks shall be of gold.

3. IN THE CURTAINS OF THE MISHKAN (Shemot 26:6)

And you shall make fifty golden clasps, and couple the curtains together with the clasps: that the tabernacle may be one.

What was made of silver?

In the structure of the Mishkan – the sockets of the boards of the Mishkan are silver:

And you shall make forty sockets of silver under the boards…. (Shemot 23:19)

Similarly, the sockets of the pillars of the parokhet are made of silver:

And you shall put [the parokhet] upon four pillars of shittim wood overlaid with gold: their hooks shall be of gold, upon four sockets of silver. (ibid. v. 32)

The only silver vessels connected to the service of the Mishkan are the silver trumpets.

Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, you shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; that they may be to you for a memorial before your God; I am the Lord your God. (Bemidbar 10:1-10)

What was made of copper / brass?

1. IN THE STRUCTURE OF THE MISHKAN

In the pillars of the door of the Ohel Mo'ed:

And you shall make for the screen five pillars of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold, and their hooks shall be of gold: and you shall cast five sockets of brass for them. (Shemot 26:37)

In the pillars of the courtyard:

All the pillars round about the court shall be bound with silver; their hooks shall be of silver, and their sockets of brass. (ibid. 27:17)

The curtains are connected by brass clasps:

And you shall make fifty clasps of brass, and put the clasps into the loops, and couple the tent together, that it may be one. (ibid. 26:11)

2. IN THE VESSELS OF THE MISHKAN

The outer altar:

And you shall make the horns of it upon its four corners: its horns shall be of the same; and you shall overlay it with brass. And you shall make its pans to receive its ashes, and its shovels, and its basins, and its forks, and its firepans; all its vessels you shall make of brass. And you shall make for it a grate of network of brass; and upon the net shall you make four brazen rings on its four corners… And you shall make poles for the altar, poles of shittim wood, and overlay them with brass. (Shemot 27:2-10)

The pegs of the Mishkan and the pegs of the courtyard:

All the vessels of the Mishkan in all its service and all its pegs, and all the pegs of the court, shall be of brass. (ibid. 17:19)

The laver and its pedestal:

You shall also make a laver of brass, and its pedestal also of brass, for washing; and you shall put it between the Ohel Mo'ed and the altar, and you shall put water in it. (ibid. 30:18)

The Materiality of a Divine Dwelling by Prof. Jonathan Ben-Dov

The divine presence requires precious materials. As the Israeli biblical scholar Menahem Haran (1924-2015) noted, the description of the tabernacle conveys a clear sense of hierarchy: the outer courts are built of plain materials like wood and flax, and the materials become gradually more and more expensive until the inner sanctum is reached, where the items are primarily of gold. The same holds true with regard to the vestments of the priests: The high priest, who enters the holiest places and serves the most important rituals, wears golden clothes while lay priests only wear simple linen white vestments.

Gold in Ancient Egypt
by Deborah Schorsch, Department of Objects Conservation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2017

Egypt is a land rich in gold, and ancient miners employing traditional methods were thorough in their exploitation of economically feasible sources. In addition to the resources of the Eastern Desert, Egypt had access to the riches of Nubia, which is reflected in its ancient name, nbw (the Egyptian word for gold). The hieroglyph for gold—a broad collar—appears with the beginning of writing in Dynasty 1, but the earliest surviving gold artifacts date to the preliterate days of the fourth millennium B.C.; these are mostly beads and other modest items used for personal adornment. Gold jewelry intended for daily life or use in temple or funerary ritual continued to be produced throughout Egypt’s long history.

The gold used by the Egyptians generally contains silver, often in substantial amounts, and it appears that for most of Egypt’s history gold was not refined to increase its purity. The color of a metal is affected by its composition: gradations in hue that range between the bright yellow of a central boss that once embellished a vessel dating to the Third Intermediate Period (30.8.371) and the paler grayish yellow of a Middle Kingdom uraeus pendant (26.8.81) are due to the natural presence of lesser or greater amounts of silver. In fact, the pendant contains gold and silver in nearly equal amounts and is therefore electrum, a natural alloy of gold containing more than 20 percent silver, as defined by the ancient Roman author, naturalist, philosopher, and historian Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis historia. A ring dated to the Amarna Period depicting Shu and Tefnut illustrates a rare occasion when an Egyptian goldsmith added a significant amount of copper to a natural gold-silver alloy to attain a reddish hue (26.7.767)...

Malleability, a physical property shared by many metals and most pronounced for gold, is the ability to be hammered into thin sheets, and it is in this form that most gold artifacts from ancient Egypt survive: solid, cast gold objects, such as a ram’s-head amulet dated to the Kushite Period, are generally small and relatively rare (1989.281.98). Gold leaf as thin as one micron was produced even in ancient times, and thicker foils or sheets were applied mechanically or with an adhesive to impart a golden surface to a broad range of other materials, including the wood of Hapiankhtifi’s model broad collar (12.183.16) dating to Dynasty 12, and the bronze mount of a basalt heart scarab (30.8.1080) dating to the New Kingdom. On the broad collar, the leaf was applied onto a layer of gesso (plaster with an adhesive gum) over linen; on the scarab, a somewhat thicker foil was crimped between the bronze mount and the stone scarab. Gold inlays were also used to enhance works in other media, especially bronze statuary (29.2.3)...

Beyond Prestige and Magnificence: The Theological Significance of Gold in the Israelite Tabernacle
by Nissim Amzallag, Ben Gurion University, Harvard Theological Review, 2019

Besides such extrinsic holiness, however, the accumulation of gold in sanctuaries may express an essential association of this metal with the holy sphere independently of any social, mercantile, or aesthetic consideration. The possibility of intrinsic holiness of gold is generally discarded in modern research focusing on the cult of YHWH in ancient Israel. An examination of the use of gold in antiquity, however, reveals that the presence of the metal in shrines was hardly restricted to functions of prestige and magnificence. In ancient Egypt, for example, gold was the metal that typically conferred holiness on sanctuaries. It was even regarded as the material specifically constituting the skin and flesh of the gods. This explains why essential attributes of the gods, such as luminosity and timelessness, were consubstantial to specific properties of gold. A similar intrinsic holiness of gold is identified in Mycenaean Greece, where the golden funerary mask was not simply a mark of the deceased’s social status but rather the symbol and/or marker of his transition from mortality to immortality. In Bronze Age Europe, too, patterns of gold burial seem to reflect the belief that gold was a metal of divine origin offered to mortals and not the other way around.

These examples confirm that an intrinsic holiness was sometimes attached to gold in antiquity, as gold was regarded as especially appropriate for expressing the divine. They also indicate that gold acquired its holiness in two different ways: as the most appropriate material with which to symbolize the divine, and as a material of literal divine provenance. In the latter case, gold came to be considered an integral part of the divine realm, its properties revealing aspects of the divine nature and universe. The treatment of gold as a metal of divine origin introduces a theological dimension that is absent from its use in sanctuaries for aesthetic purposes, as a marker of opulence and blessing, and even as a symbol of the divine.

Gold and copper have similar properties. As pure metals, gold and copper have almost the same melting point (1063°C and 1083°C, respectively). They also have similar color and brilliance, especially when gold is compared with some copper alloys. In both, the introduction of small quantities of an additive (silver or copper for gold, tin or arsenic for copper) lowers the melting point substantially and improves strength and mechanical properties considerably.

One finds, however, two essential differences between the metals. The first concerns the inalterability of gold, a feature that associates this metal with eternity and perfection. It contrasts with the oxidation processes that affect copper and set this metal in the realm of temporality. The second concerns the origin of these metals. Copper was produced in the southern Levant by smelting a green sandstone (malachite) in which no ostensible traces of metal are visible. Before the rise of modern chemistry, the smelting process was considered a genuine act of creation in a furnace. In contrast, gold was never produced in a furnace; it was only extracted in a native state.

These parallels and differences had implications in antiquity. If the two properties typically associated with the divine (timelessness and luminosity) characterize gold, and if this metal cannot be produced by humankind, it would not be surprising for people to approach it as being produced in the divine sphere, in parallel with the way copper was produced by humankind.