What Does Exodus 35:23 Mean?
And every man with whom was found blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair, and reddened skins of rams, and badgers' skins, brought them.
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 every man, with whom was found blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair, and red skins of rams, and badgers’ skins, brought them.THE KEY
The Hebrew for the rams’ red skins shares its root with Adam and adamah, so the dwelling’s covering carries the word-shape of the ground-born human.
THE MEANING
What is already found within your reach becomes material for the dwelling: color, cloth, hair, and animal skins enter sacred making. The word for the rams’ red skins shares its root with Adam and adamah, keeping the human and the soil inside the image. Earthly, embodied life is already among the materials of God’s dwelling.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The sacred belongs only to what is beyond ordinary, material life. This verse places fabric, hair, and animal skins among the materials of the dwelling.
THE ROOT
מְאָדָּמִים
me’odamim
GROWS FROM
א־ד־ם
Be red; redness.
“reddened skins of rams” in this verse is me’odamim. The word describing the rams’ skins shares its root consonants with Adam and adamah. English names only the color, while Hebrew lets the red covering echo the ground and the human named from it.
ALSO GROWS
adom: Red
אָדֹם
This is the color word carried in the description of the ram skins.
adam: Human; Adam
אָדָם
The shared root links the red covering with the ground-born human.
adamah: Ground, soil
אֲדָמָה
The root ties the covering’s color to the soil from which the human is named.
הֵבִיאוּ
hevi’u
GROWS FROM
בוא
Come, arrive, enter.
The Hebrew verb for “brought” is a causative form of בוא, “come.” English makes the action sound like transport alone; the root carries the sense of causing something to come into presence.
ALSO GROWS
bo: Come, enter, arrive
בּוֹא
This is the root’s basic movement, the arrival hidden inside “brought.”
hevi: Bring; cause to come
הֵבִיא
This causative form makes the brought materials arrive where they can be used.
mavo: Entrance, entry
מָבוֹא
The related noun names a place of entering, extending the root’s movement into a threshold.
נִמְצָא
nimtsa
GROWS FROM
מצא
Find, meet, come upon.
“was found” in this verse is nimtsa. The materials are first described as found with someone, before they are brought. The root can mean finding or encountering, so the verse begins with what is already present among people.
ALSO GROWS
matsa: Find, come upon, encounter
מָצָא
This is the root’s active form: someone comes upon what is there.
nimtsa: Be found, be present
נִמְצָא
This form describes the materials already present with the person before they are brought.
THE PATTERN
What is already entrusted to people becomes shared provision when it is brought into common work.
But who am I, and what is my people, that we should hold the strength to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things come from you, and from your hand have we given to you.Therefore I urge you, brothers, through the compassions of God, to set your bodies beside God as a living sacrifice, set apart, well-pleasing to him, which is your true service.As each has received a gift, serve it to one another as good stewards of the many-colored favor of God.THE THREAD
And they came, every one whose heart lifted him, and every one whom his breath made free-hearted, and they brought the LORD's lifted offering for the work of the tent of meeting, and for all its serving, and for the set-apart garments.In Hebrew, “came” (וַיָּבֹאוּ, wayyavo’u) and “brought” (וַיָּבִיאוּ, wayyavi’u) share the root בוא. The language links the people’s arrival with the materials’ arrival: what they bring is made to come into the shared work.
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