What Does Exodus 35:26 Mean?
And all the women whose heart lifted them in wisdom spun goats' hair.
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 all the women whose heart stirred them up in wisdom spun goats’ hair.THE KEY
What English calls hearts being “stirred” is a lifting that carries inner movement into skilled work.
THE MEANING
The verse holds inner movement and practiced skill in one act: the women’s hearts lift them, and wisdom appears in their hands as they spin goats’ hair. Here, wisdom is something embodied and made, not only something thought.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that wisdom is only abstract thought dissolves here: wisdom is visible, practiced skill.
THE ROOT
נָשָׂא
nāśāʾ
GROWS FROM
נשא
To lift, carry, or bear.
“lifted them” in this verse is nāśāʾ. The verb translated “stirred them up” carries the basic motion of lifting or bearing. The Hebrew pictures the heart lifting the women into action, so inner movement bears fruit as work.
ALSO GROWS
nāśîʾ: Leader or prince; one raised to a position.
נָשִׂיא
This branch carries the sense of being lifted up, echoing the heart’s upward movement into action.
maśśāʾ: A burden, something carried.
מַשָּׂא
This branch shows the root’s carrying sense: here, the heart carries its impulse into work.
חָכְמָה
ḥokhmāh
GROWS FROM
חכם
To be wise or skillful; to act with practical competence.
In this craft setting, ḥokhmāh is more than an idea: it is skilled know-how. The same word family describes the “wise-hearted” as capable artisans, so wisdom here is what practiced hands can do.
ALSO GROWS
ḥākām: A wise or skillful person.
חָכָם
This branch lets wisdom describe a person’s capability, not only a thought they hold.
ḥakham-lev: Wise of heart; skillful in heart.
חֲכַם־לֵב
This phrase is used for artisans in the same work account, joining inner wisdom with the ability to make.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom becomes visible when inward capacity takes shape in skilled work.
And all the women who were wise-hearted spun with their hands, and brought what they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen.And I have filled him with the breath of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of work.Who among you is wise and knowing? Let him show his works from a good walk, in the tamed gentleness of wisdom.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.The same verb נשא (nāśāʾ, lift or carry) describes the heart lifting a person into willing contribution. Here, that same inner lift takes a precise material form: skilled hands spin goats’ hair.
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