What Does Exodus 39:23 Mean?
And there was a mouth in the midst of the robe, as the mouth of a coat of mail, with a band round about the mouth, so that it would not tear.
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 there was an hole in the midst of the robe, as the hole of an habergeon, with a band round about the hole, that it should not rend.THE KEY
The Hebrew calls the robe’s opening a mouth and its binding a lip: the finished edge keeps an opening from becoming a tear.
THE MEANING
The robe has an opening, yet its edge is formed so the fabric remains whole. The Hebrew pictures the opening as a mouth and the binding around it as a lip. For the reader now, the image holds a distinction between an opening and a rupture.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An opening does not mean the whole is already broken; the verse shows an opening held intact by its finished edge.
THE ROOT
פִּי
pi
GROWS FROM
פה
Mouth; by extension, an opening or entrance.
The opening is named with the ordinary Hebrew word for a mouth. The robe’s opening is not treated as damage: it has a lip around it, so the mouth stays formed and the fabric does not split.
ALSO GROWS
peh: Mouth.
פֶּה
This is the ordinary word behind the robe’s opening, making the garment’s construction bodily and concrete.
pi: Mouth of; the construct form used for the opening of something.
פִּי
The verse calls it the mouth of the robe, linking an opening to a formed passage rather than a tear.
שָׂפָה
saphah
GROWS FROM
שפה
Lip; also an edge or border.
“band around the hole” in this verse is saphah. What the KJV calls a band is literally a lip around the garment’s mouth. The same word names lips, language, and an edge such as a shore: the boundary gives the opening a shape that can remain intact.
ALSO GROWS
saphah: Lip; also language.
שָׂפָה
The robe’s edge is pictured as a lip around its mouth, while this same word can name the human lip and speech.
sefat-hayam: Shore, literally “lip of the sea.”
שְׂפַת־הַיָּם
This use of the same word for an edge shows how a lip can mark and shape a boundary.
יִקָּרֵעַ
yiqqarea‘
GROWS FROM
קרע
To tear or split apart.
“tear” in this verse is yiqqarea‘. The verb describes the robe as something that could be torn. The finished lip holds the opening in place so the fabric does not become a split.
ALSO GROWS
qara‘: To tear or rend.
קָרַע
This is the root action the binding prevents.
yiqqarea‘: Be torn.
יִקָּרֵעַ
The verse uses this form for what must not happen to the robe.
THE PATTERN
A garment’s integrity depends on how its openings and edges are formed: a held edge preserves wholeness, while a mismatch can worsen a tear.
There will be a mouth at its top, in its middle. It will have a lip of woven work around its mouth, like the mouth of a coat of mail, so that it does not tear.Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four shares, a share for every soldier. They also took his tunic, and the tunic was without seam, woven from above throughout.No one lays a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for its filling lifts away from the garment, and the tear grows worse.THE THREAD
And the whole earth had one lip, and one set of words.The Hebrew word שָׂפָה (saphah, “lip” or “language”) names both the robe’s binding and the shared language in Genesis. The same word connects an edge that shapes an opening with the lip through which speech takes form.
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