What Does Exodus 40:34 Mean in the King James?
Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
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 cloud covers the meeting tent at the same moment the LORD’s weight fills it, so hiddenness and presence are not opposites here.
THE MEANING
The meeting tent is under cloud as the LORD’s weight fills the tabernacle. Presence is fully there without becoming exposed or graspable; the covering and the fullness exist together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that what is covered is empty or abandoned: here the cloud covers the tent as the LORD’s weight fills it.
THE ROOT
כָּבוֹד
kavod
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty; by extension, to carry weight or honor.
Kavod carries the sense of weight, so the LORD’s glory here is substantial presence, not simply a shining display. The Hebrew lets you hear the force of something weighty occupying the tabernacle.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy, weighty.
כָּבֵד
The adjective makes the root’s physical sense plain: kavod carries the substance of weight.
kibbed: To honor, treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
Honor is what happens when someone or something is given weight; the LORD’s presence gives the tabernacle that weight.
מוֹעֵד
moʿed
GROWS FROM
יעד
y-ʿ-d
To appoint or designate; to set a time or place for meeting.
“congregation” in this verse is moʿed. The tent’s name also carries the sense of an appointed meeting place. The cloud covers that place of encounter while the LORD’s weight fills it, so the scene is an appointed meeting becoming full.
ALSO GROWS
yaʿad: To appoint, designate, or set a meeting.
יָעַד
This verb carries the sense of purpose in the tent’s name: the meeting place is appointed.
moʿed: An appointed time, meeting, or place of meeting.
מוֹעֵד
This is the word in the tent’s name, opening “congregation” to the added sense of an appointed encounter.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s presence is shown filling what becomes its dwelling, from the tent to the whole earth to embodied life.
So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD.And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.THE THREAD
So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD.This verse repeats the same Hebrew pairing: כָּבוֹד (kavod, weight or glory) and מָלֵא (maleʾ, fill) describe the LORD’s presence filling a dwelling. The cloud need not be named for the connection to hold: the LORD’s weight fills the house.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us