Word Study: Wise Heart

WORD STUDY – WISE HEART
Exodus 35:10: “And all the wise hearted among you shall come and make all that the Lord hath commanded.”
Wise – Hebrew:  Hacam – teachable, skillful, knowing.
Heart – Levav – Heart in the physical sense, life, reasoning, understanding, will, judgment, design, affection, love, hatred, courage, fear, joy, sorrow.
Wise Hearted:  Hebrew idiom for knowing God’s heart.
Who are the wise hearted? Looking up the word wise and heart in the back of your Strong Concordance or your lexicon will reveal that wisdom means one who is teachable, skillful and knowing.  Only those with a teachable, skillful and knowing heart would be allowed to work on the tabernacle.  That makes sense, you sure don’t want people with their own idea of how the tabernacle should look building the thing, it needs to be done according to God’s own specifications.   The word heart has a broad range of meaning, but can be summarized as your deep seated passions.
The word “wisdom” is spelled “Chet – 8, Kap – 20, Mem – 40.  It has a numerical value of 68.  The Hebrew word for “a united heart” also has a numerical value of 68.  The “Chet and Kap represent a joining of your heart with God.  The final “Mem” represents the hidden knowledge of God.   Wisdom is the joining of your heart in unity with God to discern his hidden knowledge. That would explain why God only wanted the “wise hearted” or those who knew His heart, to build His tabernacle, only those who could discern His hidden knowledge.   The Hebrew word “heart” is “Lamed – 30, Beth – 2 with a total numerical value of 32.  The Hebrew words for “clean,” “pure” and “light” also have a numerical value of 32. The lamed beth represents reaching up heaven for divine knowledge as your place of beginning.
So what is a “wise heart?”   A wise hearted person is someone who has a pure heart that is in unity with God so as to discern the hidden knowledge of God.  Only such a person can know the heart of God.
You add the numerical value of “a wise heart among you” and you get a numerical value of 164.  This is the same numerical value for “in the congregation of the Lord.”    This is the kicker.  Not everyone in the congregation of the Lord was chosen to help build the tabernacle, only those with a wise heart.  Only those who knew the heart of God really knew what God wanted for his tabernacle could build every piece to God’s specification because they would want it to say to God, “I love you.”  Not everyone in the congregation of God had a wise heart or knew the heart of God.  There may have been many skilled craftsmen and talented artist who could have built the tabernacle, but without a wise heart, without knowing the heart of God, they would have built the tabernacle as a symbol of their talent and to bring honor to themselves.
There are many talented Christians out there or non-Christians who use Christianity as a vehicle to display their talents.  They may have beautiful voices to sing and lead worship services, they may be able to skillfully play a musical instrument, even preach a moving sermon or even give a beautiful testimony, yet they do not have a “wise heart.”  They perform from their own heart and not the heart of God.  They are indeed called of God to perform, but only the “wise hearted” those who know God’s heart are chosen to declare the heart of God.  Jesus taught in Matthew 22:14 that many are called, but only those who respond dressed in the appropriate wedding garments are chosen.
There are many who have a “wise heart” that are dressed in the appropriate wedding garment and are put in the back row of a church and told to keep quiet because they do appear to have a gift or talent to perform or speak before the congregation.  We honor only the gifted and talented, but rarely do we allow the “wise hearted” the ones appropriately dressed, the chosen, to share.  As a result the heart of God is rarely shared in many of our churches.