What Does Exodus 26:7 Mean?

And you shall make curtains of goats' hair to be a covering upon the dwelling; eleven curtains you shall make.

Exodus 26:7 · 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 curtains of goats’ hair to be a covering upon the tabernacle: eleven curtains shalt thou make.

THE KEY

The Hebrew pictures a tent set over a dwelling: shelter surrounds presence without becoming it.

THE MEANING

A dwelling sits beneath an outer tent made from eleven curtains of goats’ hair. The shelter is assembled from many pieces, while the dwelling remains its center.

THE ROOT

מִשְׁכָּן

mishkan

GROWS FROM

שכן

To dwell, settle, or reside.

“Tabernacle” names a structure, while mishkan carries the root of dwelling within it. Its shelter serves a place of nearness; it is not the presence itself.

ALSO GROWS

shakan: To dwell or settle.

שָׁכַן

This verb is the seed of mishkan: the structure takes its name from the act of dwelling.

shakhen: Neighbor, one who dwells nearby.

שָׁכֵן

The same root connects dwelling with nearness to others, opening the tabernacle beyond a mere covered object.

THE PATTERN

Presence is made near through a dwelling that is sheltered or pitched among people.

And he spread the tent over the dwelling, and set the covering of the tent from above upon it, as the LORD commanded Moses.

Exodus 40:19 · SDVThe tent-over-dwelling arrangement appears again, showing the covering as a shelter around the dwelling.

He who settles in the hiding place of the Most High lodges in the shadow of the Almighty.

Psalm 91:1 · SDVHere dwelling under shelter is expressed as abiding in the shadow of the Most High.

And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.

John 1:14 · SDVThe word rendered “dwelt” carries the image of pitching a tent, making presence among people the dwelling place.

THE THREAD

And let them make me a set-apart place, that I may pitch my tent among them.

Exodus 25:8 · SDV

The word “tabernacle” here and “dwell” there grow from the same Hebrew root, ⁨שכן⁩. Together they reveal the shelter’s purpose: a dwelling where presence is among people.

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