What Does Exodus 36:22 Mean?
One frame had two hands, interlocked, each to its brother; thus did he make for all the frames of the dwelling.
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
One board had two tenons, equally distant one from another: thus did he make for all the boards of the tabernacle.THE KEY
The structure called “tabernacle” is, in Hebrew, a dwelling, and these joined boards are that dwelling taking form.
THE MEANING
Each board carries two tenons matched with the next, and the same pattern runs through all the boards. A dwelling takes shape as these separate parts meet in a shared frame.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁכָּן
mishkan
GROWS FROM
שכן
sh-k-n
To settle, dwell, or remain.
The Hebrew word for tabernacle, mishkan, comes from shakan, meaning to dwell. The boards are not merely around a dwelling; their fitted form is how the dwelling takes shape.
ALSO GROWS
shākan: To dwell or settle.
שָׁכַן
This verb names the purpose carried in the structure’s name.
shokhen: One who dwells or settles.
שׁוֹכֵן
The same root links the dwelling with the one who inhabits it.
mishkan: Dwelling place; tabernacle.
מִשְׁכָּן
The building’s Hebrew name grows from the act of dwelling.
מְשֻׁלָּבֹת
meshullavot
GROWS FROM
שלב
sh-l-b
To interlock or fit together.
“interlocked, each to its brother” in this verse is meshullavot. The spacing is matched, and the Hebrew word also carries the sense of being interlocked: these tenons are arranged to meet. Their repeated fit turns separate boards into one frame.
ALSO GROWS
shalav: To interlock or join.
שָׁלַב
The verb names the joining action carried by the board’s projections.
meshullav: Fitted or interlocked.
מְשֻׁלָּב
This form describes parts joined into a shared arrangement.
shiluv: Joining or integration.
שִׁלּוּב
The same word family keeps the image of distinct parts brought into one fit.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling takes shape through repeated parts whose joints are made to meet.
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.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 let them make me a set-apart place, that I may pitch my tent among them.Mishkan (מִשְׁכָּן), meaning “dwelling place,” comes from shakan (שָׁכַן), meaning “to dwell”; Exodus 25:8 uses that verb when it says, “that I may dwell among them.” The fitted boards here belong to the very meaning of the structure: this is a dwelling being formed.
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