Matthew Henry on Exodus 26:15-30
Very particular directions are here given about the boards of the tabernacle, which were to bear up the curtains, as the stakes of a tent which had need to be strong, Isa 54:2. These boards had tenons which fell into the mortises that were made for them in silver bases. God took care to have every thing strong, as well as fine, in his tabernacle. Curtains without boards would have been shaken by every wind; but it is a good thing to have the heart established with grace, which is as the boards to support the curtains of profession, which otherwise will not hold out long. The boards were coupled together with gold rings at top and bottom (Exo 26:24), and kept firm with bars that ran through g…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Exodus 26:15
thou shalt make boards . . . rear up the tabernacle according to the fashion . . . which was showed thee--The tabernacle, from its name as well as from its general appearance and arrangements, was a tent; but from the description given in these verses, the boards that formed its walls, the five (cross) bars that strengthened them, and the middle bar that "reached from end to end," and gave it solidity and compactness, it was evidently a more substantial fabric than a light and fragile tent, probably on account of the weight of its various coverings as well as for the protection of its precious furniture.
Adam Clarke on Exodus 26:16
Ten cubits shall be the length of a board - Each of these boards or planks was about five yards and two feet and a half long, and thirty-two inches broad; and as they are said to be standing up, this was the Height of the tabernacle. The length being thirty cubits, twenty boards, one cubit and a half broad each, make about seventeen yards and a half, and the Breadth was about five yards.
John Gill on Exodus 26:16
Ten cubits shall be the length of a board,.... Or five yards, according to the common cubit:
and a cubit and a half shall be the breadth of one board; or three quarters of a yard; and from hence we may learn what were the height and the length of the tabernacle; according to the common computation of a cubit, it was but five yards high and fifteen long, since there were but twenty boards on each side, Exodus 26:18, but if three inches are added to each cubit, it will make its measures considerably larger: Josephus (q) says the boards were four fingers thick: according to Bishop Cumberland the boards of the tabernacle, containing fifteen Jewish square cubits, were very near fifty English squ…
