What Does Exodus 38:18 Mean?
And the hanging for the gate of the enclosure was embroidery of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen. Its length was twenty cubits, and its height across was five cubits, facing the hangings of the enclosure.
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 the hanging for the gate of the court was needlework, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen: and twenty cubits was the length, and the height in the breadth was five cubits, answerable to the hangings of the court.THE KEY
The entrance is not a break in the boundary; it is the boundary shaped into passage.
THE MEANING
The entrance is a woven screen whose length and height answer the court’s hangings. The boundary remains present at the opening, giving entry a measured shape and the same colored, embroidered surface.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that access requires the boundary to disappear: here, entry is formed by the same covering that encloses the court.
THE ROOT
מָסָךְ
masakh
GROWS FROM
סכך
sakak
To cover, screen, or shelter.
The hanging is a screen: a covering that marks an opening rather than erasing the boundary. Its root also names sheltering, so the gate’s covering shapes a passage within the court’s enclosure.
ALSO GROWS
sukkah: Booth or shelter
סֻכָּה
This related word names a shelter made by covering, echoing the screen’s enclosing function.
sokhekh: Covering or screening
סֹכֵךְ
This form shows the same root at work as an act of covering, the action carried by the gate’s screen.
רֹקֵם
roqem
GROWS FROM
רקם
raqam
To embroider or work with varied colors and stitches.
“embroidery” in this verse is roqem. The gate is described as an embroiderer’s work, so its surface is deliberately stitched and colored. The entrance is not merely measured; it is made as a visible design within the enclosing boundary.
ALSO GROWS
riqmah: Embroidery or embroidered work
רִקְמָה
This noun names the finished work of stitching, the crafted surface that marks the passage.
ruqqamti: I was embroidered or intricately worked
רֻקַּמְתִּי
Psalm 139:15 uses the same root for a life pictured as intricately worked, extending the image of making through joined strands.
THE PATTERN
A threshold gives entry a defined form within the boundary that holds it.
And for the gate of the enclosure there shall be a screen of twenty forearms, of blue, purple, and crimson, and fine twisted linen, embroidered. Their pillars shall be four, and their bases four.This is the gate to the LORD; the aligned enter into it.I am the door. Through me, if anyone enters, he shall be delivered, and shall go in and out, and shall find pasture.THE THREAD
And you shall make a hanging for the door of the tent, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, wrought with needlework.The same Hebrew word, מָסָךְ (masakh), names the screen at the court gate and the screen at the tent door. The outer and inner thresholds share the same covering and embroidered design.
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