What Does Exodus 27:14 Mean?
The hangings of one shoulder of the gate shall be fifteen forearms, their pillars three, and their bases three.
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 hangings of one side of the gate shall be fifteen cubits: their pillars three, and their sockets three.THE KEY
The gate’s side is called its shoulder, framing the entrance in the language of a body.
THE MEANING
You meet an entrance whose side is a shoulder, whose pillars stand in counted order, and whose bases match them. The boundary gives the opening shape and support without closing the way through.
THE ROOT
כָּתֵף
kāṯēp̄
GROWS FROM
כתף
Shoulder; also the side or flank of a structure.
The Hebrew calls this side a shoulder, the same body word used elsewhere for shoulders and shoulderpieces. The entrance is described in bodily terms: its edge has a shoulder, while pillars stand beneath the hanging.
ALSO GROWS
kəṯēpayim: Shoulders
כְּתֵפַיִם
The plural form makes the bodily sense explicit and reveals the image beneath the translated “side.”
kəṯēp̄ōṯ: Shoulderpieces
כְּתֵפֹת
The same word family names parts of a garment, showing how Hebrew uses shoulder language for structural edges and joins.
עַמֻּדִים
ʿammudim
GROWS FROM
עמד
To stand, remain, or take one’s place.
The word translated “pillars” grows from the verb “stand.” The entrance’s supports are named through the action they perform: they stand and hold their place.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāmaḏ: To stand
עָמַד
This verb is the root action behind the pillars’ name.
maʿămāḏ: A standing place or position
מַעֲמָד
This branch extends the root’s sense from standing to the place or position one holds.
THE PATTERN
An entrance is framed by a boundary and supports that give passage a distinct shape.
Then he came to the gate that faces the sunrise, and climbed its rising steps, and measured the threshold of the gate, one reed wide, and the other threshold of the gate, one reed wide.Lift up your heads, O gates; and be lifted up, O doors of the ages; and the King of weight enters.I am the door. Through me, if anyone enters, he shall be delivered, and shall go in and out, and shall find pasture.THE THREAD
It will have two shoulders, joined at its two edges, and so it will be joined together.The Hebrew word translated “side” here is the same word family used for the garment’s “shoulderpieces.” Exodus describes the sanctuary entrance with the body’s vocabulary, then uses that same vocabulary for the joined edges of a garment.
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