What Does Exodus 25:26 Mean?
And you make for it four rings of gold, and set the rings at the four corners of its four feet.
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
And thou shalt make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings in the four corners that are on the four feet thereof.THE KEY
The table of provision is built to move: its golden rings put carrying points at the corners above its feet.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you with a design in which provision is portable: rings sit at the table’s corners over its feet, ready for the poles that bear it. What nourishes life is already fitted to accompany people as they move.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief that sacred provision must stay in one place dissolves here: the table is made to travel with the people.
THE ROOT
שֻׁלְחָן
shulḥan
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send forth, release, or stretch out the hand.
The table’s name carries the movement of provision extended outward. Here, the rings make that movement tangible: the table can be borne along with the people.
ALSO GROWS
shulḥan: A table; provision extended for sharing.
שֻׁלְחָן
This is the object being fitted with rings, so its provision is made ready to travel.
shalach: To send out or let go.
שָׁלַח
The table’s carrying points give physical form to provision sent along with the people.
Shiloach: The name of the pool of sent waters.
שִׁלֹחַ
The same sending pattern appears in waters that go out to restore sight; here, provision is also set in motion.
רַגְלָיו
raglav
GROWS FROM
רגל
Foot; movement on foot.
The rings are placed over the table’s feet, and the root joins support with going about. What holds the table steady is also named through the movement of a traveler.
ALSO GROWS
regel: A foot, the part that supports standing and walking.
רֶגֶל
The rings are fixed above the table’s supporting points.
ragal: To move about; by extension, to scout or spy.
רָגַל
The root lets the table’s feet echo the possibility of movement built into its design.
טַבְּעֹת
tabbaʿot
GROWS FROM
טבע
Sink, submerge, or impress by sinking.
The Hebrew word for the rings is associated with a root of sinking or impressing. Its other branches carry the image of a mark pressed into form, while these gold rings mark the places through which the table can be carried.
ALSO GROWS
tava: To sink down or be submerged.
טָבַע
The root’s concrete image suggests something set into a fixed point.
matbea: A coin or impressed piece of metal.
מַטְבֵּעַ
The shared root carries the sense of an impression made in metal, here echoed by rings of gold fixed at the table’s corners.
THE PATTERN
The sacred center is designed to travel with the people it serves.
Facing the frame are the rings, as houses for the poles to lift the table.For I have not settled in any house since the day that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but I have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle.And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.THE THREAD
Facing the frame are the rings, as houses for the poles to lift the table.The next verse names the rings’ purpose: the staves pass through them so the table can be borne. The gold loops are the joints that let provision travel.
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