Exodus 26:16-30

26:16 Each ¹  frame is to be fifteen feet long, and each frame is to be two feet three inches wide, 26:17 with two projections ²  per frame parallel one to another. ³  You are to make all the frames of the tabernacle in this way. 26:18 So you are to make the frames for the tabernacle: twenty frames for the south side, ⁴  26:19 and you are to make forty silver bases to go under the twenty frames – two bases under the first frame for its two projections, and likewise ⁵  two bases under the next frame for its two projections; 26:20 and for the second side of the tabernacle, the north side, twenty frames, 26:21 and their forty silver bases, two bases under the first frame, and two bases under the next frame. 26:22 And for the back of the tabernacle on the west ⁶  you will make six frames. 26:23 You are to make two frames for the corners ⁷  of the tabernacle on the back. 26:24 At the two corners ⁸  they must be doubled at the lower end and finished together at the top in one ring. So it will be for both. 26:25 So there are to be eight frames and their silver bases, sixteen bases, two bases under the first frame, and two bases under the next frame.

26:26 “You are to make bars of acacia wood, five for the frames on one side of the tabernacle, 26:27 and five bars for the frames on the second side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the frames on the back of the tabernacle on the west. 26:28 The middle bar in the center of the frames will reach from end to end. ⁹  26:29 You are to overlay the frames with gold and make their rings of gold to provide places for the bars, and you are to overlay the bars with gold. 26:30 You are to set up the tabernacle according to the plan ¹⁰  that you were shown on the mountain.

¹ tn Heb “the frame.”

² sn Heb “hands,” the reference is probably to projections that served as stays or supports. They may have been tenons, or pegs, projecting from the bottom of the frames to hold the frames in their sockets (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 286).

³ tn Or “being joined each to the other.”

³ tn Heb “on the south side southward.”

⁴ tn The clause is repeated to show the distributive sense; it literally says, “and two bases under the one frame for its two projections.”

⁵ tn Or “westward” (toward the sea).

⁶ sn The term rendered “corners” is “an architectural term for some kind of special corner structure. Here it seems to involve two extra supports, one at each corner of the western wall” (N. M. Sarna, Exodus [JPSTC], 170).

⁷ tn Heb “they will be for the two corners.” This is the last clause of the verse, moved forward for clarity.

⁸ sn These bars served as reinforcements to hold the upright frames together. The Hebrew term for these bars is also used of crossbars on gates (Judg 16:3; Neh 3:3).

⁹ tn The noun is מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat), often translated “judgment” or “decision” in other contexts. In those settings it may reflect its basic idea of custom, which here would be reflected with a rendering of “prescribed norm” or “plan.”