What Does 1 Chronicles 28:11 Mean?
Then David gave to Solomon his son the shape of the porch, and of its houses, and of its storehouses, and of its upper rooms, and of its inner rooms, and of the place of the covering.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper chambers thereof, and of the inner parlours thereof, and of the place of the mercy seat,THE KEY
The pattern reaches past the porch to the innermost place of covering, giving even the hidden center its place.
THE MEANING
A dwelling’s form is held in its pattern, from its public entrance through hidden rooms to the place of covering. What is passed forward includes the innermost space; nothing inside the house is left outside its design.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that only what is visible at the entrance matters: its pattern continues into the inner rooms and gives the place of covering a place in the design.
THE ROOT
תַּבְנִית
tabnit
GROWS FROM
בנה
Build; form a structure.
תַּבְנִית (tabnit, pattern) grows from בנה (banah, build): the pattern is the form by which building takes shape. Here it extends from the porch to the hidden chambers and gives the covering its place within the design.
ALSO GROWS
banah: To build.
בָּנָה
The pattern is joined to the act of building: it is a form that can be carried into a dwelling.
boneh: Builder; one who builds.
בֹּנֶה
The shared root links the form to the one who brings it into shape.
וַיִּתֵּן
vayyitten
GROWS FROM
נתן
Give, set, place.
“gave” in this verse is vayyitten. נָתַן (natan, give) also carries the sense of setting or placing. The pattern is not just transferred; it is placed into Solomon’s keeping, ready to take shape in the dwelling.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This is the verb behind “gave,” joining the handoff of the pattern with the idea of setting it in place.
mattanah: Gift.
מַתָּנָה
The same root connects giving with what is entrusted and received.
הַכַּפֹּרֶת
ha-kapporet
GROWS FROM
כפר
Cover; cover over.
כַּפֹּרֶת (kapporet, covering) is connected to כָּפַר (kaphar, cover). The pattern explicitly gives the covering a place in the innermost part of the dwelling, making it part of the design itself.
ALSO GROWS
kaphar: To cover.
כָּפַר
The root brings the sense of covering into the phrase translated “mercy seat.”
kippurim: Covering; atonement.
כִּפֻּרִים
This related form shows how the language of covering also extends to the act of covering over.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling takes coherent shape when its form is received through wisdom and carried into every part of it.
According to all that I show you, the form of the dwelling and the form of all its vessels, so you make it.Through wisdom a house is built, and through discernment it is set firm.who serve in a tracing and a shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was warned by God when he was about to finish the tent. For look, he says, "Make all things according to the impression shown to you on the mountain."THE THREAD
All this, said David, the LORD made me see in writing by his hand upon me, even all the works of this shape.The same Hebrew word תַּבְנִית (tabnit, pattern) appears here. The pattern David passes on is the one he has been made to understand, and it includes every part of the dwelling down to the place of covering.
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