white byssus, so as to form artistic figures of cherubim (“cherubim, work of the artistic weaver, shalt thou make it”). חשׁב מעשׂה (lit., work or labour of the thinker) is applied to artistic weaving, in which either figures or gold threads (Exo 28:6, Exo 28:8, Exo 28:15) are worked into the cloth, and which is to be distinguished from רקם מעשׂה variegated weaving (Exo 26:36).
verses 2-3
The length of each piece was to be 28 cubits, and the breadth 4 cubits, one measure for all; and five of these pieces were to be “joined together one to another,” i.e., joined or sewed together into a piece of 28 cubits in length and 20 in breadth, and the same with the other five.
verses 4-5
They were also to make 50 hyacinth loops “on the border of the one piece of tapestry, from the end in the join,” i.e., on the extreme edge of the five pieces that were sewed together; and the same “on the border of the last piece in the second joined tapestry.” Thus there were to be fifty loops in each of the two large pieces, and these loops were to be מקבּילת “taking up the loops one the other;” that is to say, they were to be so made that the loops in the two pieces should exactly meet.
Verse 6
Fifty golden clasps were also to be made, to fasten the pieces of drapery (the two halves of the tent-cloth) together, “that it might be a dwelling-place.” This necessarily leads to Bähr's conclusion, that the tent-cloth, which consisted of two halves fastened together with the loops and clasps, answering to the two compartments of the dwelling-place (Exo 26:33), enclosed the whole of the interior, not only covering the open framework above, but the side walls also, and therefore that it hung down inside the walls, and that it was not spread out upon the wooden framework so as to form the ceiling, but hung down on the walls on the outside of the wooden beams, so that the gilded beams were left uncovered in the inside. For if this splendid tent-cloth had been intended for the ceiling only, and therefore only 30 cubits had been visible out of the 40 cubits of its breadth, and only 10 out of the 28 of its length-that is to say, if not much more than a third of the whole had been seen and used for the inner lining of the dwelling, - that is to say, if not much more than a third of the whole had been seen and used for the inner lining of the dwelling, - it would not have been called “the dwelling” so constantly as it is (cf. Exo 36:8; Exo 40:18), nor would the goats'-hair covering which was placed above it have been just as constantly called the “tent above the dwelling” (Exo 26:7; Exo 36:14; Exo 40:19). This inner tent-cloth was so spread out, that whilst it was fastened to
