As his assistant (verse 6) Ahali-Av ben Achi-Samach, of the tribe of Dan, about whom nothing else but this is known. When Mosheh presents him to the people, in Exodus 35:30, he phrases it slightly oddly:
"And Mosheh said to the Beney Yisra-El: 'See, YHVH has called by name Betsal-El ben Uri ben Chur, of the tribe of Yehudah."
Does this mean that YHVH was unwilling to let Mosheh choose his own man, and picked his favourite? Or is Mosheh averting jealousies and competition among the candidates, by abrogating responsibility (he usually does!)? It might be an appellation rather than his name, in the same way that Yoseph was named Tsaphnat Paneyach by Pharaoh when he was appointed Vizier, and several of the Prophets are clearly the names of Guilds rather than the birth-names of the individuals appointed to their highest office. It is also most unusual, as pointed out previously, to name the grandfather as well - unless the grandfather was already famous among the people for having the same skills.
Much depends, for our understanding of this, on the meaning of his name. The hyperlink (here) will take you to the Jewish Encyclopedia, whose article includes a discussion of the Rabbinic view that it was really Be-Tsel-El = "in the shadow of El"; you can read the explanation of this there.
The Rabbinic explanation is the one accepted by most Christian scholars (click here for Strong's discussion, as an example); mostly because there does not appear to be any Yehudit root to explain the name, other than BATSAL, which is an onion (cf Numbers 11:5), and this seems at best unlikely.
Other than in Torah, the name only appears once more in the Tanach, in Ezra 10:30, where he is one of several priests from amongst the Beney Yisra-El (in this context, meaning not a Levi or a Kohen, and therefore odd that he could have been a priest anyway) who had married non-Yehudi women, and were expected to divorce them.
That there should have been such skilled craftsmen among the slaves fleeing Mitsrayim with Mosheh should not surprise us, as their work for the past several generations had been in the building trade, with pyrmaids and palaces among their specialities.
Does this mean that YHVH was unwilling to let Mosheh choose his own man, and picked his favourite? Or is Mosheh averting jealousies and competition among the candidates, by abrogating responsibility (he usually does!)? It might be an appellation rather than his name, in the same way that Yoseph was named Tsaphnat Paneyach by Pharaoh when he was appointed Vizier, and several of the Prophets are clearly the names of Guilds rather than the birth-names of the individuals appointed to their highest office. It is also most unusual, as pointed out previously, to name the grandfather as well - unless the grandfather was already famous among the people for having the same skills.
Much depends, for our understanding of this, on the meaning of his name. The hyperlink (here) will take you to the Jewish Encyclopedia, whose article includes a discussion of the Rabbinic view that it was really Be-Tsel-El = "in the shadow of El"; you can read the explanation of this there.
The Rabbinic explanation is the one accepted by most Christian scholars (click here for Strong's discussion, as an example); mostly because there does not appear to be any Yehudit root to explain the name, other than BATSAL, which is an onion (cf Numbers 11:5), and this seems at best unlikely.
Other than in Torah, the name only appears once more in the Tanach, in Ezra 10:30, where he is one of several priests from amongst the Beney Yisra-El (in this context, meaning not a Levi or a Kohen, and therefore odd that he could have been a priest anyway) who had married non-Yehudi women, and were expected to divorce them.
That there should have been such skilled craftsmen among the slaves fleeing Mitsrayim with Mosheh should not surprise us, as their work for the past several generations had been in the building trade, with pyrmaids and palaces among their specialities.
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David Prashker
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