What Does Exodus 39:17 Mean?
And they set the two braided chains of gold in the two rings at the ends of the breastplate.
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 put the two wreathen chains of gold in the two rings on the ends of the breastplate.THE KEY
What is precious is held in place through its connections: the gold chains pass through rings at the breastplate’s edges.
THE MEANING
The breastplate is secured through chains placed into rings at both ends. The verse gives attention to the joins: what is precious is held by specific attachments, each deliberately set in place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
That something precious stays secure on its own; the verse locates its security in the points where it is joined.
THE ROOT
וַיִּתְּנוּ
vayitnu
GROWS FROM
נתן
Give, set, place.
The verb translated “put” is וַיִּתְּנוּ (vayitnu, “they set or placed”), from נתן (natan, “give, set, place”). The chains are deliberately given their place inside the rings; placement is part of how the breastplate is held.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: A gift: something given.
מַתָּנָה
This branch keeps giving and placement in one family: the chains are given a specific place in the rings.
netinim: Those assigned or given for service.
נְתִינִים
The word echoes the chains’ designated position at the breastplate’s ends.
THE PATTERN
A structure holds together through deliberately placed points of connection.
And you shall make fifty taches of gold, and join the curtains together with the taches; and it shall be one dwelling.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 the two ends of the two braided chains they fastened into the two settings, and set them on the shoulder pieces of the ephod, before its face.The next verse uses the same root, נתן (natan, “give, set, place”), for putting the chains on the ephod’s shoulderpieces. It reveals their path: from the breastplate rings to the structure that carries them.
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