What Does Exodus 36:11 Mean?
And he made loops of blue on the lip of one curtain at the joining; likewise he made in the uttermost side of another curtain, at the joining of the second.
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 he made loops of blue on the edge of one curtain from the selvedge in the coupling: likewise he made in the uttermost side of another curtain, in the coupling of the second.THE KEY
The covering becomes one through small, repeated joins at the edges where its separate curtains meet.
THE MEANING
Separate curtains meet at their edges, where blue loops create points of connection. Through these repeated joins, distinct pieces take their place in one larger covering.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Wholeness requires everything to be seamless and made from one piece. This verse shows a covering formed by joining distinct pieces.
THE ROOT
מַחְבָּרֶת
maḥberet
GROWS FROM
ח־ב־ר
ḥ-b-r
to join, bind, or associate
This root holds joining and companionship together: fabric is joined, and a companion is someone joined in relation. Psalm 122:3 uses the same root for a city described as “compact together,” extending the image from a seam to a whole made through connection.
ALSO GROWS
ḥābar: to join, bind, or associate
חָבַר
This verb names the act carried by the coupling between the curtains.
ḥubberah: is joined or compacted together
חֻבְּרָה
This form appears in Psalm 122:3, where a city is described as joined into a whole.
ḥāver: companion or associate
חָבֵר
The related noun shows the root also describing a person joined to another in relation.
THE PATTERN
A whole structure takes shape as distinct parts are joined through repeated points of connection.
Jerusalem is built as a city bound together.In whom the whole building, joined at the joints, grows into a set-apart temple in the Lord.For as the body is one, and has many limbs, and all the limbs of the body, though many, are one body, so also is the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Jerusalem is built as a city bound together.The word for “coupling” comes from ח־ב־ר (ḥ-b-r), meaning to join or associate; “compact together” in this Psalm comes from the same root. The root links the joined curtain edges here with a city held together as a whole.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us