What Does Exodus 36:21 Mean?
The length of a frame was ten forearms, and the breadth of a frame one forearm and a half.
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 length of a board was ten cubits, and the breadth of a board one cubit and a half.THE KEY
The word for a board’s breadth shares its root with the Hebrew for making room: the dwelling’s space is built into the measure.
THE MEANING
The board’s breadth is a measured width, and its Hebrew word grows from the root for widening and making room. Its length and breadth give the dwelling a concrete, bounded form, while the word for breadth carries an echo of room opening.
THE ROOT
רֹחַב
roḥav
GROWS FROM
רחב
r-ḥ-b
The verbal root rachav means to widen or make room.
The word translated “breadth” comes from the root for widening and making room. That root also appears in Rehoboth, “broad places,” and in the words “the LORD hath made room for us,” so the board’s measured span echoes the language of room opening.
ALSO GROWS
rachav: To widen or become spacious
רָחַב
This is the verbal root beneath “breadth,” linking the board’s physical span with widening.
Rehoboth: Broad places
רְחֹבוֹת
The name shares the root and shows its sense of spaciousness and room.
אֹרֶךְ
ʾorekh
GROWS FROM
ארך
ʾ-r-k
The verbal root arakh means to be long or to lengthen.
The word for length belongs to a root that also describes extension over time. Hebrew carries the same idea of “long” into the phrase erekh appayim, “slow to flare,” where length describes a delayed response.
ALSO GROWS
arakh: To lengthen or prolong
אָרַךְ
This verb shows the extension already present in the board’s measured length.
erekh appayim: Slow to flare
אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם
The same root’s sense of length extends from physical span to a response held back over time.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling takes shape as distinct parts are measured, fitted, and joined into a shared habitation.
Two tenons shall be in one board, set in order one against another; thus you shall make for all the boards of the dwelling.In whom the whole building, joined at the joints, grows into a set-apart temple in the Lord. In whom you also are built together into a place where God settles, through breath.You also, as living stones, are built up into a house of breath, a set-apart priesthood, to carry up sacrifices of breath, well received by God through Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And he pulled up from there, and dug another well, and over that they did not strive. And he called the name of it Rehoboth, the wide places, and he said, For now the LORD has widened a place for us, and we shall bear fruit in the land.Here, “breadth” is רֹחַב (roḥav), from רחב (rachav), widening or making room; Genesis 26:22 uses that same root in “the LORD hath made room for us.” The shared root lets the board’s exact span echo the language of room being opened while keeping its measure concrete.
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