What Does Exodus 28:6 Mean?
And they will make the ephod of gold, of blue, of purple, of scarlet, and of twisted fine linen, by the work of skilled hands.
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 they shall make the ephod of gold, of blue, and of purple, of scarlet, and fine twined linen, with cunning work.THE KEY
The ephod is thought made wearable: its form comes from skilled design joining unlike materials.
THE MEANING
What is set apart takes visible form through material held together by intentional design. The ephod is gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen shaped into one garment; “cunning work” names thought carried into skilled making.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that sacred things are made apart from material and skilled hands: here, gold, dyed thread, and linen are part of the garment’s making.
THE ROOT
מַעֲשֵׂה חֹשֵׁב
ma'aseh choshev
GROWS FROM
חשב
chashav (חָשַׁב): to think, devise, or reckon.
“work of skilled hands” in this verse is ma'aseh choshev. The phrase means work of a designer: the garment carries thought into its woven form. English “cunning” can sound like trickery today, but here the root reveals deliberate design and skilled making.
ALSO GROWS
machashavah: thought, plan, or design
מַחֲשָׁבָה
The ephod’s colors and materials are not merely gathered; they are arranged as parts of a conceived whole.
cheshbon: account or reckoning
חֶשְׁבּוֹן
The same root links design with considered ordering: the garment’s many materials take shape as one work.
THE PATTERN
A purposeful whole takes form when distinct materials or parts are joined through considered design.
To devise designs, to work in gold, and in silver, and in bronze.My bones are not hidden from you, as I am made in the hiding place, and embroidered in the lowest depths of the earth.For we are his making, created in the Anointed One, Jesus, for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that in them we might walk.THE THREAD
To devise designs, to work in gold, and in silver, and in bronze.Exodus 31:4 uses the same חשב (chashav, think or devise) root in “devise cunning works.” That shared root shows the ephod’s making as a design conceived and then carried into material form.
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