What Does Exodus 38:15 Mean in the King James?
And for the other side of the court gate, on this hand and that hand, were hangings of fifteen cubits; their pillars three, and their sockets three.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The gate is a measured opening whose hanging sides stand on counted supports.
THE MEANING
The passage into what is set apart stays open while its edges are measured and supported. Equal lengths of hanging cloth rest on three pillars and three sockets on either side; the opening has a clear shape because its boundary is held.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the assumption that access requires an unbounded opening: here, the entrance remains within a measured, supported boundary.
THE ROOT
עַמּוּד
ʿammûd
GROWS FROM
עמד
ʿ-m-d
to stand, remain, or take one’s stand
English calls these “pillars,” a noun that can sound like a static object; the Hebrew word is formed from עמד, “to stand.” It presents the supports as standing members that hold the hanging boundary around an open gate.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāmad: to stand, remain
עָמַד
The curtain’s frame depends on uprights that stand; the fabric does not hold the boundary by itself.
maʿămād: a standing place, position, or station
מַעֲמָד
The same root can name a position or station, linking support with a place held in standing.
THE PATTERN
A passage is shaped by a defined opening whose flanking boundaries rest on counted supports.
And for the gate of the court shall be an hanging of twenty cubits, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, wrought with needlework: and their pillars shall be four, and their sockets four.This gate of the LORD, into which the righteous shall enter.I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.THE THREAD
For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land.Jeremiah uses the same Hebrew word עַמּוּד (ʿammûd), meaning “pillar,” to describe a standing support. That root makes the counted pillars here more than ornament: they are the standing members that hold the boundary around the gate.
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