What Does Exodus 39:15 Mean?
And they made upon the breastplate chains at its ends, braided of clean gold.
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 they made upon the breastplate chains at the ends, of wreathen work of pure gold.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for chains belongs to the same root family as “roots”: what joins is also what anchors.
THE MEANING
What rests over the heart is joined by links carefully made of pure gold. Connection appears here as crafted continuity: the breastpiece is held in place by braided strands, each joined to the next.
THE ROOT
שַׁרְשְׁרֹת
sharshrot
GROWS FROM
שרש
To take root or strike roots; the Hebrew word for chains belongs to this root family.
The Hebrew chain word shares its consonant family with שֹׁרֶשׁ (shoresh, root): the language holds rooting and linking together. The chains across the breastpiece make that hidden connection visible, each link joins and anchors.
ALSO GROWS
sharash: To take root, strike roots
שָׁרַשׁ
Rooting anchors something in relation to what sustains it; each chain link, in turn, joins securely to the next.
shoresh: Root
שֹׁרֶשׁ
This noun carries the family’s image of an anchor beneath the surface, alongside the chain’s visible links.
טָהוֹר
tahor
GROWS FROM
טהר
To be clean or pure.
“clean gold” in this verse is tahor. The links are made of pure gold, so their purity belongs to their material, not merely their appearance. The root also names cleansing: the verse places purity in the substance of what joins the breastpiece.
ALSO GROWS
taharah: Purity, cleanness
טָהֳרָה
This noun carries the same quality named for the gold, making purity part of the chain’s substance.
tiher: Cleansed, purified
טִהֵר
This verb shows the root’s active sense: purity can describe both a clean state and the act of cleansing.
THE PATTERN
What is held in place is joined through connections shaped to serve the whole.
And you will make two cords of pure gold at the ends, of braided work, and set the braided cords on the settings.And nets of checker work, and braided cords, for the crowns which were upon the top of the pillars; seven for the one crown, and seven for the other crown.from whom the whole body, joined together and knit by every joint that supplies, according to the working in the measure of each part, makes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.THE THREAD
And you will make two cords of pure gold at the ends, of braided work, and set the braided cords on the settings.This verse repeats שַׁרְשְׁרֹת (sharshrot, chains), the same Hebrew word used for the breastpiece’s links. It adds that the chains fasten to the settings, showing how their joining holds the whole piece together.
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