What Does Exodus 38:5 Mean in the King James?
And he cast four rings for the four ends of the grate of brass, to be places for the staves.
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 altar’s carrying poles have “houses” built into its four corners, so portability belongs to its design.
THE MEANING
The bronze grate has four rings at its corners, each serving as a house for a carrying pole. The means of bearing the altar is built into its frame from the start.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This loosens the assumption that what is sacred must stay in one place: this altar is made to be carried.
THE ROOT
לְבָתִּים
lebatim
GROWS FROM
בית
bayit
House, dwelling, or built place.
The word rendered “places” is literally “houses.” The rings are small dwellings for the poles, making movement part of the altar’s built form rather than an accessory added later.
ALSO GROWS
bayit: House, dwelling
בַּיִת
This is the singular form behind “houses”; it makes the rings’ function feel like a fitted home for each stave.
beit-el: House of God; Bethel
בֵּית־אֵל
The compound preserves the same house word in a named dwelling, while this verse applies the image to a practical fitting.
טַבָּעֹת
ṭabbaʿot
GROWS FROM
טבע
ṭ-b-ʿ
To sink down or impress.
The word for rings belongs to a root that also carries the sense of sinking or impressing. That root adds an image of formed, set metal to the fitting; here the rings receive the poles and make the altar bearable.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāvaʿ: To sink, sink down, or become submerged
טָבַע
This verb preserves the root’s image of something set down into or pressed into a place.
matbēaʿ: Coin; stamped piece
מַטְבֵּעַ
This related word carries the sense of an impressed form, adding the image of shaped metal to the rings cast for the altar.
THE PATTERN
Sacred furnishings carry their means of movement within their construction.
And thou shalt put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark, that the ark may be borne with them.And when Aaron and his sons have made an end of covering the sanctuary, and all the vessels of the sanctuary, as the camp is to set forward; after that, the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it: but they shall not touch any holy thing, lest they die. These things are the burden of the sons of Kohath in the tabernacle of the congregation.And the children of the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded according to the word of the LORD.THE THREAD
And the staves shall be put into the rings, and the staves shall be upon the two sides of the altar, to bear it.Exodus 27:7 uses the same Hebrew word for “rings” and shows the staves placed through them so the altar can be borne. It makes explicit how the rings in this verse turn the altar’s corners into points of movement.
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