What Does Exodus 26:17 Mean in the King James?

Two tenons shall there be in one board, set in order one against another: thus shalt thou make for all the boards of the tabernacle.

Exodus 26:17 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

Each board carries two projecting “hands,” and the dwelling holds together as those hands interlock with the next board.

THE MEANING

The verse shows the tabernacle as a structure made whole through fitted connections between its boards. No board stands as an isolated piece; each one meets its counterpart in a shared framework.

THE ROOT

מְשֻׁלָּבֹת

meshullavot

GROWS FROM

שָׁלַב

to join, fit together, or interlock

“set in order one against another” in this verse is meshullavot. The Hebrew word rendered “set in order” carries the sense of joining or interlocking. The verse’s structure depends on fitted contact: each board’s paired projections meet the next, so the whole is held together through connection.

ALSO GROWS

shalav: to join or interlock

שָׁלַב

The verb names the joining action that the verse’s boards embody.

meshullav: joined or interlocked

מְשֻׁלָּב

This related form describes the fitted state of the boards, where separate pieces become part of one framework.

THE PATTERN

A dwelling becomes one structure when distinct parts are fitted together through their points of connection.

Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together:

Psalm 122:3 · KJVThe city’s wholeness is pictured as a close joining of its parts.

In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:

Ephesians 2:21 · KJVThe temple takes shape as its many parts are framed together.

For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:12 · KJVMany distinct members form one body through their shared place within it.

THE THREAD

In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:

Ephesians 2:21 · KJV

Exodus shows the tabernacle’s boards joined through fitted projections; Ephesians carries the same building image into a structure framed together as a temple. In both, the dwelling takes shape through the way its separate parts meet.

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