Boards ... of shittim wood standing up. These boards, made of acacia wood (see the note at Exodus 25:15), covered with gold, were to be formed each ten cubits in length, and a cubit and a half in breadth [Nothing is said as to thickness, which Lightfoot ('Gleanings from Exodus') declares, on the authority of rabbinical tradition, to have been nine inches.] Neither the acacia Seyal nor the acacia Nilotica could have furnished single planks for boards of the prescribed dimensions, though, as has been suggested, the acacia Serissa of Cairo might have done so, supposing it to have formerly grown in the desert of Sinai. But it is not absolutely necessary to suppose that each [ qeresh (H7175)] board consisted of a single plank, since the word is used collectively (Ezekiel 27:6) for the deck of a ship (Gesenius).
Every board was to be cut or fashioned at the extremity into the form of two tenons [ yadowt (H3027), hands], by which it might take hold of, and be fastened into silver sockets [ 'adneey (H134) kecep (H3701), bases, pedestals], on which it was to stand erect. Twenty boards were placed on the north side, twenty on the south, and six on the west, with two "for the corners of the tabernacle;" five bars [ bªriychim (H1280), cross bars] of the same materials, passed along each side of the tabernacle through rings attached to each board, held them compactly together; but the central bar extended over all the boards.
'The arrangement,' says Mr. Rhind ('Tabernacle in the Wilderness,' p. 22), 'of the boards of the western side, or, as our version has it, of the sides of the tabernacle westward, is of considerable difficulty; because if we imagine an extreme obtuse angle to account for the language, the sides westward, there would be an impossibility to run the center golden bar through all; and this the text (Exodus 26:28) demands should be done.'
If the 'Bishop's Bible' gives the correct rendering of the passage, there is no difficulty as to this part of the question - i:e., the sides. The language is thus-`And on the side of the tabernacle toward the west shalt thou make six boards; also two boards shalt thou make in the corners of the tabernacle on the two sides; also, they shall be joined beneath, and likewise they shall be joined above to a ring; thus shall it be for them two-they shall be for two corners, so they shall be eight boards, having sockets of silver, even sixteen sockets-that is, two sockets under one board, and two sockets under another board.'
If this is the correct rendering of the passage, then the difficulty is removed. And as the measurement of the curtains fully demonstrates that the width of the tabernacle was but 10 cubits, it is manifest that the two boards which formed the corners must have been divided into two equal parts perpendicularly, and then joined together; because this would just provide for the width, which may be thus proved-The six boards, of course, would be 9 cubits; then a half cubit of each of the half boards would reach to the extremity of the north and south sides, while the extra quarter of a cubit on each side would project beyond, sufficient to have coupled to them the other half of the two boards, and so the two corners would be doubled firm and sure. Such was the framework of the tabernacle.
From its name, as well as from its general appearance and arrangements, it was a tent; but from the description given in the preceding verses, the boards that formed its walls, the five cross bars that strengthened them, and the middle bar that "reached from end to end," giving it solidity and compactness, it was evidently a more substantial fabric than a light and fragile tent, the boards and bars being introduced probably on account of the weight of its various coverings, as well as for the protection of its precious furniture.