The appointment of Bezalel and the commandment of Sabbath in (Exodus 31:1-18) culminate in one of the most extraordinary images in all of Targum Jonathan: the physical description of the tablets of the covenant.
The Hebrew Bible says God gave Moses two tablets of stone. The Targum says God gave Moses "two tablets of the testimony, tablets of sapphire-stone from the throne of glory, weighing forty seah, inscribed by the finger of the Lord." The tablets were not ordinary rock. They were cut from the sapphire of God's own throne. And they were massive, weighing approximately forty seah, a unit of dry measure that translates to hundreds of pounds.
Bezalel himself receives a title upgrade. The Hebrew text calls him by name. The Targum calls him "the good Bezalel," and notes that God filled him "with the Spirit of holiness from before the Lord, in wisdom and in intelligence, in knowledge, and in all workmanship." His assistant Oholiab likewise received the Spirit of wisdom directly into his heart.
The Sabbath commandment is sharpened. The penalty for violating it is spelled out as death "by the casting of stones." The Targum adds that the Sabbath is to be kept with "delightful exercises," a phrase suggesting celebration rather than mere restriction.
The covenant is described as a "sign between My Word and the sons of Israel," using the Targum's characteristic Memra theology. God did not simply rest on the seventh day. He "created and perfected the heavens and the earth" in six days, then "rested and refreshed." That final word, refreshed, implies that even the Creator experienced something like relief at the completion of the world.
Then came the sapphire tablets, heavy as a man, radiant as a throne, written by God's own finger.