What Does Exodus 25:32 Mean?
And six stalks come forth from its sides, three stalks of the lampstand from the one side, and three stalks of the lampstand from its other side.
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 six branches shall come out of the sides of it; three branches of the candlestick out of the one side, and three branches of the candlestick out of the other side:THE KEY
The Hebrew calls the branches stalks that come out from the lampstand, so its many extensions begin in one source.
THE MEANING
Six stalks extend from the lampstand, three on each side. Each has its own reach, yet all emerge from the same body. The verse holds distinction and unity together in a balanced form.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that distinct parts must be independent: each branch remains distinct while emerging from one body.
THE ROOT
קָנִים
qānîm
GROWS FROM
קנה
q-n-h
Reed, cane, or stalk.
The word translated “branches” is literally canes or stalks, and the same noun can name a measuring reed. The lamp is pictured with reedlike extensions, each growing out from its central form.
ALSO GROWS
qāneh: A reed, cane, or single stalk.
קָנֶה
This is the singular form behind the six “branches,” bringing their stalklike shape into view.
qeneh hammiddah: A measuring reed or rod.
קְנֵה הַמִּדָּה
The stalk also serves as a measure in Ezekiel 40:3, showing how the same concrete form can extend outward and mark dimensions.
יֹצְאִים
yotze’im
GROWS FROM
יצא
y-ts-ʾ
To go out or come forth.
“come out” in this verse is yotze’im. The branches are described as “going out” from the lampstand’s sides, a verb that keeps their emergence tied to their source. The same word family can name both a departure and an outlet, so the image carries the sense of a visible going-forth.
ALSO GROWS
yetsi’ah: A going out or departure.
יְצִיאָה
This noun preserves the movement expressed by the branches as they go out from the sides.
motsa: An outlet, source, or point of emergence.
מוֹצָא
This related form makes the lampstand’s sides legible as the place from which the branches issue.
THE PATTERN
Many distinct extensions can come from one source and remain part of one whole.
Their knobs and their stalks are from it; all of it is one hammered work of clean gold.And he said to me, What do you see? And I said, I have seen, and look, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl upon its top, and its seven lamps upon it, and seven spouts to the seven lamps, which are upon its top.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.THE THREAD
Their knobs and their stalks are from it; all of it is one hammered work of clean gold.This verse makes explicit what the six stalks emerging from the sides already suggest: the branches belong to the same work as the lampstand. Their number and separate shape do not make them separate pieces.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us