What Does Exodus 36:27 Mean?
And for the sides of the dwelling westward he made six frames.
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 for the sides of the tabernacle westward he made six boards.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for the tabernacle’s far side is kin to the word for a body’s thigh or flank, giving the dwelling an embodied edge.
THE MEANING
The dwelling takes shape even at its farthest end: six boards form its westward side. The word for that remote side also belongs to the Hebrew family for thigh or flank, so the structure is described in bodily language. Even its least visible edge belongs to its form.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This detail undoes the assumption that only a dwelling’s visible front matters; its far edge receives deliberate attention too.
THE ROOT
לְיַרְכְּתֵי
leyarketei
GROWS FROM
ירך
y-r-k
Thigh; flank or side, extending to the far or rear part.
The word for the tabernacle’s remote sides belongs to the same word family as the body’s thigh or flank. English separates anatomy from architecture; Hebrew lets the dwelling’s far edge carry the language of a body’s side.
ALSO GROWS
yarekh: Thigh; flank.
יָרֵךְ
This bodily word shares the root behind the tabernacle’s sides, linking the structure’s edge with the body’s own flank.
yarketah: Toward the rear or farthest part.
יַרְכָּתָה
This related form shows how the root can describe a remote edge, the sense carried by the tabernacle’s westward sides.
הַמִּשְׁכָּן
hammishkan
GROWS FROM
שכן
sh-k-n
To settle or dwell.
The tabernacle’s name comes from the word family for dwelling or settling. A related word names a neighbor, tying the dwelling to the presence that settles among people.
ALSO GROWS
shakan: To dwell; settle.
שָׁכַן
This verb is the root of the tabernacle’s name, so the structure is named for dwelling.
shakhen: Neighbor; one who dwells nearby.
שָׁכֵן
This related word brings dwelling into the language of nearness: a tabernacle is a place where presence settles among neighbors.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling takes shape as distinct pieces close and complete its boundaries.
And for the sides of the dwelling westward you shall make six boards.So he built the house, and finished it; and covered the house with beams and boards of cedar.In whom you also are built together into a place where God settles, through breath.THE THREAD
In whom you also are built together into a place where God settles, through breath.The westward boards make a dwelling tangible through its assembled parts. The same dwelling image reaches the reader’s present: people are being built together as God’s habitation.
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