What Does Exodus 26:26 Mean?
And you shall make bars of shittim wood; five for the boards of the one side of the dwelling,
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 bars of shittim wood; five for the boards of the one side of the tabernacle,THE KEY
The bars bind separate boards into one dwelling, so the frame’s wholeness depends on what passes between its parts.
THE MEANING
A dwelling takes shape as separate boards are held by bars that run across them. The whole frame depends on supports that join its pieces, even when the boards are more visible. What looks like many parts becomes shelter through connection.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that strength belongs only to each piece standing alone is undone here: the supports joining the pieces are part of the strength of the whole.
THE ROOT
בְּרִיחִים
berichim
GROWS FROM
ברח
To flee or move swiftly; the related noun means a bolt or bar.
English gives only a hardware word, but בְּרִיחִים (berichim) shares its root with בָּרַח (barach), “to flee.” The next verse shows the bars running through the boards from end to end: the image joins movement across the frame with the fastening that holds it together.
ALSO GROWS
barach: To flee or move swiftly.
בָּרַח
This verb shares the root ברח with the bars, opening a sense of movement that the English hardware word does not carry by itself.
beriach: A bolt or bar.
בְּרִיחַ
This singular form names the support that passes across and secures the boards.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling becomes one when supports join its separate pieces.
And the middle bar in the midst of the boards shall reach from end to end.Jerusalem is built as a city bound together.In whom the whole building, joined at the joints, grows into a set-apart temple in the Lord.THE THREAD
And the middle bar in the midst of the boards shall reach from end to end.The same Hebrew word for bar returns as the middle bar running from end to end. Verse 26 names the supports; verse 28 reveals their reach through the frame, fastening separate boards into a dwelling.
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