What Does Exodus 27:4 Mean?

You shall make for it a grate, a net of bronze, and upon the net you shall make four bronze rings at its four corners.

Exodus 27:4 · 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 for it a grate of network of brass; and upon the net shalt thou make four brasen rings in the four corners thereof.

THE KEY

The altar’s bronze grate is called a net, the same Hebrew word that can name a snare, so its open mesh is built to hold what enters it.

THE MEANING

You see a bronze grate worked as a net, with four bronze rings placed at its four corners. The mesh stays open, while the rings give its edges places to be attached. The verse holds interwoven openness and firm placement together in one object.

THE ROOT

רֶשֶׁת

resheth

GROWS FROM

ר־ש־ת

A net: an interwoven mesh that catches or holds.

English “network” can sound like a general pattern, but ⁨רֶשֶׁת⁩ is a concrete net. The same word names this bronze grate and the concealed net in Psalm 9:15, keeping openwork and capture together.

ALSO GROWS

resheth: Net, mesh, or lattice.

רֶשֶׁת

Here it names the openwork of the bronze grate.

rashat: To catch or ensnare with a net.

רָשַׁת

This verb reveals the net’s capacity to hold what enters its strands, as the net does in Psalm 9:15.

THE PATTERN

A net is an open weave that catches and holds what enters its strands.

You shall make for it a grate, a net of bronze, and upon the net you shall make four bronze rings at its four corners.

Exodus 27:4 · SDVThe altar’s grate is an openwork net made of bronze, with rings at its four corners.

The nations sink into the pit they made; in the net they hid, their own foot is caught.

Psalm 9:15 · SDVThe net’s open strands catch a foot, turning mesh into a snare.

And when he stopped speaking, he said to Simon, Draw out into the deep, and loosen your nets for a catch.

Luke 5:4 · SDVThe nets are lowered into the water to gather what enters them.

THE THREAD

The nations sink into the pit they made; in the net they hid, their own foot is caught.

Psalm 9:15 · SDV

The grate’s “network” is ⁨רֶשֶׁת⁩, the same Hebrew word translated “net” here. In one verse it names bronze mesh; in the other, a concealed snare, the shared root holds both uses together.

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