RESTRAINED, withheld, shut up — 'the people were kala from bringing' (36:6), and elsewhere this verb almost always names something held back against its own nature: the flood-rain finally restrained from falling (Genesis 8:2, already on these pages), sky and earth restrained from giving dew and produce in a famine of Jehovah's own making (Haggai 1:10, already on these pages), Jeremiah himself shut up under guard (Jeremiah 32:2-3, not yet on these pages). Only here does the word describe reining in an excess of generosity — Moses has to issue a public order to make the giving STOP, the one fundraising problem in the Bible that is too much rather than too little. → first discussed at Exod 36:6