What Does Exodus 39:20 Mean?
And they made two other golden rings, and set them on the two sides of the ephod beneath, toward its face, opposite its other joining, above the skillfully woven belt of the ephod.
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 two other golden rings, and put them on the two sides of the ephod underneath, toward the forepart of it, over against the other coupling thereof, above the curious girdle of the ephod.THE KEY
The ephod’s rings are placed at its machberet, its joining, so the point where its parts meet becomes a point of support.
THE MEANING
You are shown a whole held through its joins: two gold rings sit on either side of the ephod, opposite its coupling and above its woven band. The careful placement makes connection part of the garment’s structure.
THE ROOT
מַחְבַּרְתּוֹ
machbartō its joining
GROWS FROM
ח־ב־ר
ḥ-b-r
to join, bind, or associate
The word for the ephod’s coupling comes from a root that also describes joining people in company. The rings sit opposite this machberet, making the place of connection part of the garment’s support.
ALSO GROWS
ḥābar: to join or bind together
חָבַר
This verb shares the root of machberet and names the act that brings separate parts together.
ḥāvēr: companion or associate
חָבֵר
The same root extends joining from objects to people in association, revealing a shared language of connection.
חֵשֶׁב
ḥēšev the skillfully
GROWS FROM
ח־שׁ־ב
ḥ-š-b
to think, reckon, or devise
“skillfully woven belt” in this verse is ḥēšev the skillfully. The KJV’s “curious” means skillfully wrought here; the Hebrew names the ephod’s woven band chesheb. Its root also carries the sense of devising and design, fitting the verse’s precise placement of the rings above that worked band.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāshav: to think, reckon, or devise
חָשַׁב
This verb shares the band’s root and brings deliberate planning into view alongside the skilled textile work.
maḥashavah: thought, plan, or design
מַחֲשָׁבָה
This related noun makes the root’s design sense explicit, illuminating the careful arrangement of the garment’s joins and fastenings.
THE PATTERN
A whole is sustained through deliberately placed connections between its parts.
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 you shall make fifty taches of gold, and join the curtains together with the taches; and it shall be one dwelling.The verb “couple” (וְחִבַּרְתָּ, veḥibbartā) shares the root ח־ב־ר (ḥ-b-r), “join,” with machberet, the ephod’s “coupling” here. The same root names both the ephod’s joining and the connection that brings many curtains into one tabernacle.
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