What Does Exodus 26:2 Mean?
The length of one curtain shall be eight and twenty forearms, and the width of one curtain four forearms; every one of the curtains shall have one measure.
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
The length of one curtain shall be eight and twenty cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: and every one of the curtains shall have one measure.THE KEY
The curtains share one measure, and that shared measure is what lets separate pieces belong to the same dwelling.
THE MEANING
Each curtain has a specified length and breadth, and every curtain follows one measure. The verse places wholeness in the exact proportions of each part: nothing is dimensionally foreign to the whole.
THE ROOT
מִדָּה
middah
GROWS FROM
מדד
To measure out or determine extent.
English can make “measure” sound like a bare specification, but the Hebrew word belongs to a root of measuring out. The text makes shared proportion explicit: each curtain has its own dimensions, while every curtain receives the same measure.
ALSO GROWS
madad: To measure or measure out.
מָדַד
The verb behind the noun presents measure as an act of giving something a defined extent.
middah: Measure, dimension, or extent.
מִדָּה
This is the word used here: the repeated standard that makes the curtains fit the same design.
רֹחַב
rochav
GROWS FROM
רחב
To become broad or spacious; to make room.
“width” in this verse is rochav. The word for breadth belongs to a family that also speaks of widening and spaciousness. The curtain’s room-giving dimension is not left vague; it takes its place within a precise measure.
ALSO GROWS
rachav: To become broad or spacious.
רָחַב
This verb makes the spatial sense inside “breadth” audible: breadth is roominess expressed as a dimension.
hirchiv: To widen or make spacious.
הִרְחִיב
This causative form shows the same root describing the making of room, echoing the breadth that gives the curtain its span.
אֹרֶךְ
orekh
GROWS FROM
ארך
To be long or to lengthen, in space or time.
English “length” sounds purely geometric, but its root also extends into duration. In the phrase אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם (erekh appayim), literally “long of nostrils,” it describes being slow to flare; the same root moves from measured space to time held open.
ALSO GROWS
he'erikh: To lengthen or prolong.
הֶאֱרִיךְ
This verb carries the root from a physical span into extension over time.
erekh appayim: Literally “long of nostrils”; “slow to flare.”
אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם
This established phrase shows that the root of curtain-length also describes an extended interval before anger flares.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling becomes whole as distinct parts are given fitting proportions and joined into one structure.
And you shall make fifty taches of gold, and join the curtains together with the taches; and it shall be one dwelling.And the other cherub was ten forearms; both cherubim were of one measure and one size.In whom the whole building, joined at the joints, grows into a set-apart temple in the Lord.THE THREAD
And the other cherub was ten forearms; both cherubim were of one measure and one size.The phrase “one measure” uses the same Hebrew word, מִדָּה (middah), that names the curtains’ shared measure here. The word links measured fabric with the temple’s paired figures: in both places, a shared dimension is part of how the dwelling takes form.
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