What Does Exodus 38:18 Mean in the King James?
And the hanging for the gate of the court was needlework, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen: and twenty cubits was the length, and the height in the breadth was five cubits, answerable to the hangings of the court.
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 entrance is not a break in the boundary; it is the boundary shaped into passage.
THE MEANING
The entrance is a woven screen whose length and height answer the court’s hangings. The boundary remains present at the opening, giving entry a measured shape and the same colored, embroidered surface.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that access requires the boundary to disappear: here, entry is formed by the same covering that encloses the court.
THE ROOT
מָסָךְ
masakh
GROWS FROM
סכך
sakak
To cover, screen, or shelter.
The hanging is a screen: a covering that marks an opening rather than erasing the boundary. Its root also names sheltering, so the gate’s covering shapes a passage within the court’s enclosure.
ALSO GROWS
sukkah: Booth or shelter
סֻכָּה
This related word names a shelter made by covering, echoing the screen’s enclosing function.
sokhekh: Covering or screening
סֹכֵךְ
This form shows the same root at work as an act of covering, the action carried by the gate’s screen.
רֹקֵם
roqem
GROWS FROM
רקם
raqam
To embroider or work with varied colors and stitches.
“needlework” in this verse is roqem. The gate is described as an embroiderer’s work, so its surface is deliberately stitched and colored. The entrance is not merely measured; it is made as a visible design within the enclosing boundary.
ALSO GROWS
riqmah: Embroidery or embroidered work
רִקְמָה
This noun names the finished work of stitching, the crafted surface that marks the passage.
ruqqamti: I was embroidered or intricately worked
רֻקַּמְתִּי
Psalm 139:15 uses the same root for a life pictured as intricately worked, extending the image of making through joined strands.
THE PATTERN
A threshold gives entry a defined form within the boundary that holds it.
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
And thou shalt make an hanging for the door of the tent, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, wrought with needlework.The same Hebrew word, מָסָךְ (masakh), names the screen at the court gate and the screen at the tent door. The outer and inner thresholds share the same covering and embroidered design.
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