What Does Exodus 35:11 Mean?
The tabernacle, his tent, and his covering, his clasps, and his boards, his bars, his pillars, and his bases.
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 tabernacle, his tent, and his covering, his taches, and his boards, his bars, his pillars, and his sockets,THE KEY
The Hebrew name translated “tabernacle” grows from the verb “dwell,” so this list gives dwelling a material form.
THE MEANING
The verse presents a dwelling as a whole made from distinct parts: a covering, boards, bars, pillars, and sockets. Shelter takes material shape through pieces that each have a place in holding it together.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁכָּן
mishkan
GROWS FROM
שכן
שכן (sh-k-n; shākan) means to dwell, settle, or reside.
English makes “tabernacle” sound like a thing-name, but מִשְׁכָּן (mishkan, dwelling place) carries the seed of שָׁכַן (shākan, dwell). The list describes a dwelling assembled for dwelling: covering, frame, joins, uprights, and bases give the name a material form.
ALSO GROWS
shākan: to dwell, settle, reside
שָׁכַן
The verb names the action carried by the tabernacle’s name.
shākhēn: neighbor; one who dwells nearby
שָׁכֵן
The same root makes dwelling relational: a neighbor is one settled near another.
mishkan: dwelling place, tabernacle
מִשְׁכָּן
This is the noun in the verse; the place bears the root of dwelling.
מִכְסֵהוּ
mikhseh-hu
GROWS FROM
כסה
כסה (k-s-h; kāsāh) means to cover or conceal.
The word מִכְסֵהוּ (mikhseh-hu, his covering) carries the same consonants as כָּסָה (kāsāh, cover). The list places the covering alongside the tent and its frame, showing shelter as both an enclosing layer and a constructed support.
ALSO GROWS
kāsāh: to cover
כָּסָה
The verb names the action behind the covering listed here.
mekhasseh: covering; that which covers
מְכַסֶּה
This form makes the covering itself a branch of the same root.
עַמֻּדָיו
ʿammudav
GROWS FROM
עמד
עמד (ʿ-m-d; ʿāmad) means to stand or take one’s stand.
“pillars” in this verse is ʿammudav. The pillar word shares its root with עָמַד (ʿāmad, stand): the support is named through the act of standing. That gives the list an upright axis among boards, bars, and sockets.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāmad: to stand, remain upright
עָמַד
The verb reveals the action inherent in the pillars’ name.
ʿammūd: pillar, column
עַמּוּד
This is the structural noun in the same family, naming what stands upright.
maʿămād: standing, position
מַעֲמָד
The shared root also names a standing or position, echoing the pillar’s place in the structure.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling takes shape when distinct parts are fitted into a whole that can stand and hold habitation.
And you shall make boards for the dwelling of shittim wood, standing up.And the house, when it was in building, was built of whole stone, made ready before it was brought there, so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was in building.In whom you also are built together into a place where God settles, through breath.THE THREAD
And let them make me a set-apart place, that I may pitch my tent among them.The verb “dwell” comes from שכן (sh-k-n; shākan, dwell), the same root carried by מִשְׁכָּן (mishkan, dwelling place) in this verse. Exodus 25:8 makes that root’s purpose explicit: the sanctuary is for dwelling among them, and this list gives that dwelling its material form.
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