What Does Exodus 27:13 Mean?
And the width of the enclosure, on the front edge, eastward, shall be fifty forearms.
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 the breadth of the court on the east side eastward shall be fifty cubits.THE KEY
The word translated “breadth” shares its root with “room”: the court’s boundary is measured, yet what it holds is spacious.
THE MEANING
The court has fifty cubits of breadth on its eastern side, a width set out with precision. The word for breadth shares its root with words for widening and room, holding an edge and spaciousness together. Your sense of sacred space can include both definition and room.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A defined boundary always means there is no room; here the bounded court has a measured breadth.
THE ROOT
רֹחַב
rōḥav
GROWS FROM
רחב
To grow wide, widen, or make room.
“width” in this verse is rōḥav. English gives you “breadth” as a dimension, while this root also gives words for widening and room. The court’s measured span belongs to a language of spaciousness, not only numerical boundaries.
ALSO GROWS
Rehoboth: Wide places; room.
רְחֹבוֹת
In Genesis 26:22, Rehoboth names the place where room has been made, showing the same root as spaciousness opened within a defined place.
rāḥav: To grow wide or become spacious; to enlarge.
רָחַב
Psalm 118:5 uses this root for being set in a large place after distress, linking breadth with movement out of constriction.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents space as measurable while still making room for life and movement.
And he pulled up from there, and dug another well, and over that they did not strive. And he called the name of it Rehoboth, the wide places, and he said, For now the LORD has widened a place for us, and we shall bear fruit in the land.From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.And the city lies four-cornered, and its length is as great as its width. And he measures the city with the reed, twelve thousand stades. Its length and width and height are equal.THE THREAD
And he pulled up from there, and dug another well, and over that they did not strive. And he called the name of it Rehoboth, the wide places, and he said, For now the LORD has widened a place for us, and we shall bear fruit in the land.The court’s “breadth” and Rehoboth’s “room” grow from the same root, רחב (rāḥav, to widen or make room). In one verse the width is measured; in the other, room names the place itself.
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