The Mockers Who Carried the Tabernacle to Moses

(Exodus 39:33:) "And they brought the Tabernacle to Moses, etc." This is what Scripture says (Psalms 31:19): "Let lying lips be struck dumb, which speak insolently against the righteous." It speaks of Moses. At the hour when the Holy One, blessed be He, told him to make [a Tabernacle], he immediately said to them (Exodus 35:5), "Take from among you an offering to the Lord." And Moses was occupied with the Tabernacle. Rabbi Hanina said: For six months he was occupied with the Tabernacle; for three months they made it, and for three months they kept it folded away. Even so, they would murmur against him and say: "Behold, the Tabernacle has been made; was he not saying that He would cause His Divine Presence to dwell among us?" But the Holy One, blessed be He, intended that the Tabernacle should be set up in the month in which Abraham our father was given the good tidings concerning Isaac. He did not act until, when the month arrived, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to him (Exodus 40:2), "On the day of the first month, on the first of the month, [you shall set up the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting]." At that hour the Holy One, blessed be He, said, "Let lying lips be struck dumb" — those very ones who had been scoffing about the Tabernacle began to carry it, and each and every one came to take part in the work, as it is said (Exodus 39:33), "And they brought the Tabernacle to Moses."