What Does Exodus 26:14 Mean?
And you shall make a covering for the tent of rams' skins dyed red, and a covering above of badgers' skins.
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 a covering for the tent of rams’ skins dyed red, and a covering above of badgers’ skins.THE KEY
The Hebrew repeats מִכְסֶה (mikseh, covering), so the tent is defined by two layers of shelter, with the red-dyed layer covered again from above.
THE MEANING
The verse places the reader before a dwelling covered twice: ram skins dyed red form one covering, and another lies above it. Shelter is part of the dwelling’s form; the set-apart space is enclosed beneath an outer layer.
THE ROOT
מִכְסֶה
mikseh
GROWS FROM
כסה
The root כסה (kasah) means to cover or conceal.
The noun מִכְסֶה (mikseh, covering) belongs to the same Hebrew family as the act of covering. Repeated for the tent and for the layer above, it makes shelter part of the dwelling’s very form.
ALSO GROWS
kasah: Cover or conceal.
כָּסָה
This verb is the action beneath the noun מִכְסֶה (mikseh, covering).
mekhasseh: A form of the verb meaning to cover.
מְכַסֶּה
It shows the same root כסה (kasah, cover) describing what performs the covering.
מְאָדָּמִים
me’oddamim
GROWS FROM
אדמ
The root אדמ (ʾ-d-m) carries the sense of red or ruddy color.
“dyed red” in this verse is me’oddamim. The red-dyed skins carry the consonants of אָדָם (adam, human) and אֲדָמָה (adamah, ground). Color, human, and soil share a root-family, bringing the covering’s redness into relation with embodied life and earth.
ALSO GROWS
adom: Red or ruddy.
אָדֹם
This is the direct color branch heard in the skins dyed red.
adam: A human being; Adam.
אָדָם
The shared consonants connect the red covering with the name of the ground-being.
adamah: Ground or soil.
אֲדָמָה
This branch links the red color-family to the earth from which the human is named.
מִלְמָעְלָה
milma’lah
GROWS FROM
עלה
The root עלה (ʿ-l-h) means to go up, rise, or ascend.
“above” in this verse is milma’lah. The word for the covering’s position belongs to the family of rising. The same root appears in עֹלָה (olah, burnt offering), whose name carries the sense of ascent, giving the uppermost layer an echo of upward movement.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: To rise or ascend.
עָלָה
This is the movement at the heart of the word for what is above.
olah: A burnt offering, named from the root meaning to rise.
עֹלָה
It shows the same root describing something that rises.
ma’alah: An ascent or a step upward.
מַעֲלָה
This noun makes the upward direction of the covering’s placement visible in the same root-family.
THE PATTERN
Covering meets exposure by laying a sheltering layer over vulnerable life or space.
And the LORD God made tunics of skin for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them.And he spread the tent over the dwelling, and set the covering of the tent from above upon it, as the LORD commanded Moses.And above all, hold love stretched out among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of missed marks.THE THREAD
And he spread the tent over the dwelling, and set the covering of the tent from above upon it, as the LORD commanded Moses.The same Hebrew noun מִכְסֶה (mikseh, covering), from כסה (kasah, to cover), appears again for the tent’s upper layer. This verse makes the placement explicit: the covering rests above the tent, completing the layered shelter described in Exodus 26:14.
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