What Does Exodus 39:2 Mean in the King James?

And he made the ephod of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen.

Exodus 39:2 · 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.

THE KEY

“Made” and “work” grow from the same Hebrew root, so the ephod is named as the visible form of its making.

THE MEANING

This verse shows sacred work taking shape through deliberate making: gold, colored thread, and linen become a wearable form. Hebrew repeats the root ⁨עשה⁩ (asah, “make”) in “made” and “work,” holding the act and its skilled result together. Here, the garment’s form emerges through material craft.

THE ROOT

וַיַּעַשׂ

vayya'as

GROWS FROM

עשה

⁨עשה⁩ (asah): do, make, accomplish.

English separates “made” from the later “work of cunning work,” but both words grow from ⁨עשה⁩ (asah, “do, make”). The Hebrew links the act of making with the skilled work that takes form in the ephod.

ALSO GROWS

ma'aseh: work, deed, or something made

מַעֲשֶׂה

This is the same root appearing later in the verse as “work,” joining the act of making to the workmanship it produces.

oseh: one who does or makes

עֹשֶׂה

This form keeps the root’s sense of making with the maker, illuminating the skilled action behind the garment.

THE PATTERN

Distinct materials or members take shape as a whole when they are joined into one form.

Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.

Exodus 26:1 · KJVThe tabernacle curtains bring linen and colored materials together in a crafted whole, echoing the ephod’s construction.

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 · KJVThe many members form one body, expressing the same pattern of distinct parts joined into a whole.

THE THREAD

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

Genesis 1:7 · KJV

The same root, ⁨עשה⁩ (asah, “make”), names the making of the firmament and the making of the ephod. It connects the forming of the heavens with skilled work in material: both take shape through making.

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