What Does Exodus 38:23 Mean in the King James?
And with him was Aholiab, son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver, and a cunning workman, and an embroiderer in blue, and in purple, and in scarlet, and fine linen.
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
Aholiab’s skill turns thought into patterned matter: the sacred dwelling is designed as carefully as it is built.
THE MEANING
The work of making a dwelling for God includes a mind that devises and hands that shape and embroider. Blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen are deliberate parts of the work; beauty is carried in skilled craft. Aholiab’s name, אָהֳלִיאָב (ʾOholiʾav, “father’s tent”), echoes the dwelling his craft serves.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Sacred work has no need for skilled craft, because only inward devotion matters.
THE ROOT
חֹשֵׁב
ḥōshēv
GROWS FROM
חשב
chashav
To reckon, devise, or plan.
“cunning workman” in this verse is ḥōshēv. The word behind “cunning” points to thought that works out a design, not merely quick hands. The same root carries the sense of reckoning and planning, showing the conceived pattern inside the finished craft.
ALSO GROWS
machashavah: Thought, plan, or design.
מַחֲשָׁבָה
The embroidery is the material expression of a design first held in thought.
cheshbon: Account or calculation.
חֶשְׁבּוֹן
This branch reveals the measured, considered work concealed by the English word “cunning.”
רֹקֵם
roqem
GROWS FROM
רקם
raqam
To embroider or make variegated with patterned stitching.
“embroiderer” in this verse is roqem. This root makes the cloth a field of patterned color rather than a plain surface. The same verb describes being “curiously wrought” in Psalm 139:15, where the image of embroidery is applied to the forming of a human being.
ALSO GROWS
riqmah: Embroidery or variegated work.
רִקְמָה
It names the patterned textile made with the colors listed in this verse.
ruqqamti: I was embroidered; I was intricately worked.
רֻקַּמְתִּי
In Psalm 139:15, the same root describes the speaker’s own formation, linking crafted cloth with the language of being intricately made.
THE PATTERN
A shared work takes shape through distinct skills, each giving its part form within a larger whole.
Them hath he filled with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work, of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer, in blue, and in purple, in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that devise cunning work.My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith;THE THREAD
My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.“Curiously wrought” translates רֻקַּמְתִּי (ruqqamti), from the same root as “embroiderer” here. The cloth Aholiab stitches and the life described in the Psalm share one image: intricate pattern made visible.
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