Exo 26 | TSK | STEP | The ten curtains of the tabernacle. The eleven curtains of goats' hair, and the covering of rams' and badgers' skins. The boards of the tabernacle, with their sockets and bars. The vail for the ark. The hanging for the door. the tabernacle with ten curtains.The word {mishcan,} from {shachan,} to dwell, means simply a dwelling-place, or habitation. "When God had brought the children of Israel out of Egypt," says the very learned Dr. Cudworth, "resolving to manifest himself in a peculiar manner present among them, he thought good to dwell amongst them in a visible and external manner; and therefore, while they were in the wilderness, and sojourned in tents, he would have a tent or tabernacle built, to sojourn with them also.--Now, the tabernacle being thus a house for God to dwell in visibly, to make up the notion of dwelling or habitation complete, there must be all things suitable to a house belonging to it. Hence, in the holy place, there must be a table and a candlestick, because these were the ordinary furniture of a room. The table must have its dishes, and spoons, and bowls, and covers, belonging to it, though they were never used; and always be furnished with bread upon it. The candlestick must have its lamps continually burning, etc." fine twined linen. cherubims. cunning work. Heb. the work of a cunning workman, orembroiderer.

Exodus 26

1 The ten curtains of the tabernacle.

7 The eleven curtains of goats' hair, and the covering of rams' and badgers' skins.

15 The boards of the tabernacle, with their sockets and bars.

31 The vail for the ark.

36 The hanging for the door.

the tabernacle with ten curtains.The word {mishcan,} from {shachan,} to dwell, means simply a dwelling-place, or habitation. "When God had brought the children of Israel out of Egypt," says the very learned Dr. Cudworth, "resolving to manifest himself in a peculiar manner present among them, he thought good to dwell amongst them in a visible and external manner; and therefore, while they were in the wilderness, and sojourned in tents, he would have a tent or tabernacle built, to sojourn with them also.--Now, the tabernacle being thus a house for God to dwell in visibly, to make up the notion of dwelling or habitation complete, there must be all things suitable to a house belonging to it. Hence, in the holy place, there must be a table and a candlestick, because these were the ordinary furniture of a room. The table must have its dishes, and spoons, and bowls, and covers, belonging to it, though they were never used; and always be furnished with bread upon it. The candlestick must have its lamps continually burning, etc."

25:8; 36:8-19; 40:2,17-19; 1Ch 17:1; 21:29; Joh 1:14; 2:21; Heb 8:2

Heb 9:9,23,24; Re 21:3

fine twined linen.

36; 25:4; 35:6,35; Re 19:8

cherubims.

25:18

cunning work. Heb. the work of a cunning workman, orembroiderer.

curtain.

7,8; Nu 4:25; 2Sa 7:2; 1Ch 17:1

coupled together.

9; 36:10; Joh 17:21; 1Co 12:4,12-27; Eph 2:21,22; 4:3-6,16

Col 2:2,19

loops of blue.

5,10,11; 36:11,12,17

taches of gold.

11,33; 35:11; 36:13,18; 39:33

one tabernacle.

Eph 1:22,23; 4:16; 1Pe 2:4,5

curtains.

35:26; 36:14-18; Nu 4:25; Ps 45:13; 1Pe 3:4; 5:5

goats' hair.{Izzim,} goats, but used here elliptically for goats' hair. In different parts of Asia Minor, Syria, Cilicia, and Phrygia, the goats have long, fine, and beautiful hair; in some cases, almost as fine as silk, which is shorn at proper times, and manufactured into garments.

25:4; 35:6,23; Nu 31:20

14; Isa 4:5

eleven.

1,9,12

length of one curtain.

2,13

five curtains by themselves.

fifty loops.

4-6

tent. or, covering.

3,6

shall hang over.

a cubit.

2,8

of that which remaineth. Heb. in the remainder orsurplusage.

a covering.

36:19; Nu 4:5; Ps 27:5; 121:4,5; Isa 4:6; 25:4

rams' skins dyed red.{Oroth ailim meoddamim,} literally, the skins of red rams. It is a fact, attested by many respectable travellers, that in the Levant, sheep are often met with having red or violet coloured fleeces. Almost all ancient writers speak of the same thing.

25:5; 35:7,23; 39:34; Nu 4:10; Eze 16:10

badgers' skins.{Oroth techashim,} which nearly all the ancient versions have taken to be the name of a colour, though they differ very much with regard to the particular colour intended: the LXX., Vulgate, and Coptic, have skins dyed of a violet colour; the Syriac, azure; and the Arabic, black; and Bochart contends for the hysginus, a very deep blue. It may, however, denote an animal; for Dr. Geddes remarks, had the sacred writer meant to express only a variety of colour, he would hardly have repeated {óroth,} skins, after {meoddamim,} red, in ch. 25:5.

boards.

18,22-29; 36:20-33; 40:17,18; Nu 4:31,32; Eph 2:20,21

of shittim.

25:5

tenons. Heb. hands.

19; 36:22,24

forty sockets of silver.

25,37; 27:10,12-18; 36:24-26; 38:27,30,31; 40:18; Nu 3:36

Nu 4:31,32; So 5:15

two sockets under one board.

be coupled. Heb. twined. and they shall be coupled togetherabove.

36:29,30; Ps 133:1-3; 1Co 1:10; 3:16; 1Pe 2:5

bars of shittim wood.

36:31-38; Nu 3:36; 4:31; Ro 15:1; 1Co 9:19,20; Ga 6:1,2; Eph 4:16

Col 2:19

overlay the boards with gold.

25:11,12

rear up the tabernacle.

40:2,17,18; Nu 10:21; Jos 18:1; Heb 8:2

according to the fashion.

25:9,40; 27:8; Ac 7:44; Heb 8:5; 9:23

a vail of.

36:35; 40:3,21; Le 16:2,15; 2Ch 3:14; Mt 27:51; Mr 15:38; Lu 23:45

Eph 2:14; Heb 9:3-8; 10:20,21

blue.

25:4; 35:6,25,35; 36:8

purple.{Argaman,} a very precious colour, extracted from the purpura, or murex, a species of shell-fish; and supposed to be the same with the costly and much celebrated Tyrian purple.

scarlet.Tolaâth; properly the worm whence the scarlet colour was produced; which grew in a coccus, or excrescence, of a shrub of the ilex kind, like the cochineal worm in the Opuntia of America; which is arranged under the same genus as the Arabic {Kermez,} which also denotes this colour.

cunning work.

1; 28:15; 38:23; 2Ch 2:7-13; Ps 137:5; So 7:1

cherubims shall it be made.

25:18

pillars of shittim.

37; 36:38; Es 1:6

their hooks shall be of gold.The Hebrew {waveyhem,} which we translate their hooks, is rendered by the LXX. [kephalides,] and by the Vulgate, {capiata,} capitals. Hence Calmet contends, 1. That if Moses does not mean the capitals of the pillars by this word, he mentions them nowhere else; and it would seem strange, that while he describes them with so much exactness, that he should not mention the capitals; or that pillars every way so correctly formed, should have been destitute of this necessary ornament. 2. As Moses was commanded to make the {wavim} of the pillars, and their fillets, of silver, (ch. 27:10, 11,) and the {wavim} of the pillars of the vail of gold, (ch. 36:36,) and that 1,775 shekels were employed in making them, overlaying their chapiters, {rasheyhem,} their heads, and filleting them, (ch. 38:28,) it is more reasonable to suppose that all this is spoken of the capitals of pillars, than of any kind of hooks, especially as hooks are mentioned under the word taches or clasps. But as the root {wavah} seems to signify to connect, (for [wwy,] in Arabic, is to marry a wife,) and as the letter [ww,] {wav,} if it has not its name from its hook-like form, is yet used as a connective particle, it would rather appear to denote hooks, which connected the curtains or vails to the pillars. The LXX. also render it [agkulai,] "handles", and [krikoi,] "rings" or "clasps".

the taches.

27:10; 36:36

within the vail.

Ge 9:4,5

the ark of the testimony.

25:16; 40:21

the holy place.

Le 16:2; 1Ki 8:6,10; 2Ch 5:7-10; Heb 9:2,3

put the mercy seat.

25:21; 40:20; Heb 9:5

the table.

40:22; Heb 9:2,8,9

the candlestick.

25:31-37; 40:24

hanging.This may be termed the first vail, as it occupied the door or entrance to the tabernacle; the vail that separated the Holy of Holies is called the second vail, Heb 9:3. Mr. Morier, (Second Journey Through Persia, p. 251,) describing the tent of a chief of the Eelauts, says, "It was composed of a wooden frame of circular laths, which were fixed on the ground, and then covered over with large felts, that were fastened down by a cord, ornamented by tassels of various colours. A curtain, curiously worked by the women, with coarse needle-work of various colours, was suspended over the door. In the king of Persia's tents, magnificent {perdahs,} or hangings of needle-work, are suspended, as well as on the doors of the great mosques in Turkey; and these circumstances combined, will, perhaps, illustrate Ex 26:36."

36:37; 40:28; Joh 10:9; 14:6

the tent.

35:11; 39:33; 40:29; Nu 3:25; 9:15; 2Sa 7:6; Ps 78:60

of blue.

overlay them with gold.

36:38