What Does Exodus 25:31 Mean?

And you make a lampstand of clean gold; of hammered work is the lampstand made, its trunk, its stalks, its cups, its knobs, and its blossoms, all of one piece.

Exodus 25:31 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work shall the candlestick be made: his shaft, and his branches, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, shall be of the same.

THE KEY

The lamp’s branches are not added to its center; the whole form is hammered from the same gold.

THE MEANING

Distinct parts can take shape within one continuous whole. What branches outward still shares the substance of its source.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

Many forms do not necessarily mean fragmentation; they can remain one whole.

THE ROOT

מִקְשָׁה

miqshah

GROWS FROM

קשה

qashah

To be hard or severe; here, a piece shaped by hammering.

“hammered work” in this verse is miqshah. The word for the lamp’s hammered form carries the sense of hardness. Gold takes the blows and becomes a branching shape, while the verse says the shaft and branches remain of the same substance.

ALSO GROWS

qasheh: Hard, difficult, or severe.

קָשֶׁה

It echoes the resistance in the metal that receives its shape through blows.

hiqshah: To make hard or harden.

הִקְשָׁה

It shares the root’s language of hardness, bringing the shaping pressure into view.

THE PATTERN

Distinct forms can belong to one whole while remaining connected to a shared source.

Their knobs and their stalks are from it; all of it is one hammered work of clean gold.

Exodus 25:36 · SDVThe verse makes explicit that the lamp’s separate details are one beaten work of the same gold.

I am the vine, and you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:5 · SDVThe branches remain distinct, yet their life and fruit come through their connection to the vine.

For as the body is one, and has many limbs, and all the limbs of the body, though many, are one body, so also is the Anointed One.

1 Corinthians 12:12 · SDVMany members form one body without losing their distinctness.

THE THREAD

I am the vine, and you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:5 · SDV

John’s branches remain joined to the vine as their source of life. Exodus gives that connection a visible form: the branches and shaft are shaped from the same gold.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us