Verse 9. "thou shalt double the sixth cur tain." Thus the seams of this and of the under covering of linen, would not fall the one upon the other; and the whole would be more weathertight. ,במחברת read החברת and בחברת Verse 10. For see verse 4. The Samaritan text supports the emendation in the latter of the two words. "And thou shalt make fifty loops on the edge of that curtain, the outermost in the joined sheet, and fifty loops on the edge of the curtain in the second sheet." I once thought that this verse required a further emen in,אחת after הקיצנה for מקצה dation, by putting the first clause, and by inserting between , and in the second. Thus the phraseology would be brought much nearer to that which is used to describe almost the same thing in the 4th verse. The most material part of the emendation is the insertion of in the second clause. And this, upon consideration, I believe is unnecessary, since, when once the breadths were sewed together, the outermost in each sheet was the only one that showed an edge. The edge, therefore, of the curtain, in the second joined sheet, is necessarily the edge of the outer curtain in that sheet. .14 ועשית מכסה לאהל ערת אילם מאדמים ומכסה ערת תחשים מלמעלה: parallelum est תחשים drozolpon, et ro אולם Est » TAND, utrumque significans vellerum nativum colorem. Non significari verbo un animalia ex eo probatur, quod non additur cujus coloris, ut mox additum est in pellibus arietinis." (Houbigant ad locum.) Verse 31. -"of cunning work with cherubims shall it be made." For wr, read, with many "With cherubims of interwoven ,תעשה ,.MSS work shalt thou make it. General Remarks on the Structure and Dimensions of the Tabernacle. I conceive that the boards were placed with their breadths transverse to the length of the tabernacle. So that the whole length was formed by the thickness of the boards, and the intervals left between them. And this, as appears from the measures of the breadth, both of the linen and the goat's hair curtain, was 40 cubits on the outside, and probably 36 or 371⁄2 within. * The tenons and the silver sockets were at the two ends of the breadth of each board at bottom; so that one tenon and one socket of each board, was within the tabernacle, the other tenon and the other socket without. The boards of each side were held together by five bars thus disposed. Rings were fastened to the middle, of the thickness of the planks at the top and at the bottom, on the inside and on the out. Thus four parallel rows of rings were formed for each side; two within and without. Two of the bars were passed through the two outer rows, two through the two inner, and the fifth bar run from end to end through the substance of the boards, bored exactly in the middle for that purpose. + * Josephus makes the length only thirty cubits. + Josephus supposes that the bars for the north and south sides were composed of five pieces each, the length of each piece being five cubits, and that the ends of these pieces were made to screw together to form the entire bar. That the bars of the western end were made of one entire piece the whole length, which To the length of the boards we must add, as I conceive, the height of the silver sockets, to obtain the whole height of the tabernacle. What the height of these sockets was, we are not informed. A cubit seems a proper allowance for it. The height, therefore, from the ground will have been eleven cubits. The breadth of the tabernacle, in the outside dimensions, I take to have been fourteen cubits, and eleven in the inside. In the 13th verse, we are told that a cubit remaining on each side, "of the length of the curtain of goat's hair, was to be suffered to hang loose over the sides of the tabernacle, on this side and on that, to cover it." It is very evident, from this text in particular, and indeed from the whole description both of the linen and the goat's hair curtains, that the length of the stuff was laid over the breadth of the tabernacle. And it may seem, at first sight, as if a cubit only remained of the length of the goat's hair, on each side, to hang projected at each end, where they were bored sideways, to receive the extremities of the bars of the longer sides. But not a word of this in Moses. down over the upright boards. If this were the case, the breadth of the tabernacle, in the outside dimensions, must have been twenty-eight cubits; which would make the inside breadth, by which I mean the breadth measured between the inner edges of the opposite boards in the two sides, twenty-five cubits. But so great a breadth, when the whole length of the tabernacle came to be divided by the vail, would have made two awkward ill proportioned rooms, of a very mean aspect. But the word which in this 13th verse is rendered "tabernacle," is own, and that which is rendered "tent" is . Now it is remarkable (though not observed, as far as I can find, by any commentator), that, in this chapter, neither of these words signifies either the room within, or the whole structure of the tabernacle without. But w is the appropriate name of the awning of linen, and is the appropriate name of the other awning of goat's hair, as particularly appears from verses 1. and 6. compared with verses 7. and 11. This being understood, it appears evidently from this 13th verse, that this own had two sides; consequently, that some part of its length hung down over the upright posts, to form those two sides of it; and the hung not |