CONJECTURES AS TO THE BREADTH OF THE HOUSE

CONJECTURES AS TO THE BREADTH OF THE HOUSE

As to getting the width of the six west-end boards and the two corner boards to make up exactly ten cubits, the required internal breadth of the tabernacle: JOSEPHUS’S CONJECTURE.—”As to the wall behind where the six pillars (boards) make up together only nine cubits, they make two other pillars (boards) and cut them out of one cubit, which they placed in the comers” (Ant. 3:6, 3).

Objections to Josephus’s conjecture.—First, The corner boards are so placed that they cannot properly be called corner boards. Second, and chiefly, it makes the corner boards only one-third of the breadth or size of an ordinary board, whereas the text states that the corner boards had each two tenons, and for these there were two sockets as well as for each of the other boards, implying that they were equal to the rest. The sockets were all a talent weight each.

DR. KALISCH’S CONJECTURE.—”The larger sides consisted, therefore, of twenty such boards, whilst the shorter (western) were to contain eight boards. But the latter would not cover a breadth of ten but of twelve cubits. It is therefore added that six boards shall be made for the side westward, and other two for the corners of the tabernacle in the two sides, they shall be double beneath and above it at the two corners. From this obscure passage it appears in our opinion that each board was half-a-cubit thick, so that six boards at this western end would completely close the tent from within (nine cubits added to one-half cubit at each side, being the thickness of the boards at the northern and southern wall, make ten cubits). One-half cubit breadth is double at each corner, and one-half cubit stands over at each side” (Commentary, p. 366).

Objections to Dr. Kalisch’s conjecture.—First, Instead of ten cubits as required, it only gives a breadth of nine cubits to the house within. Dr. Kalisch is mistaken in thinking that he has solved the difficulty regarding the corner boards and the size of the house, for when he speaks about the measurement and disposition of the curtains, he bases rightly his calculations on the internal breadth of the house being ten cubits, which is contrary to his own conjecture (pp. 366, 367). Second, Half-a-cubit (nine inches) is far too great a thickness for the boards.

Mr. Pressland of London is quite wrong in supposing that he has solved the difficulty arising out of the corner boards, for in his model tabernacle only six boards are comprised in the breadth of the house, making it only nine cubits broad internally. A corner board is placed at each corner in the inside of the house so as to form with the side and back-end board a kind of triangle at each corner.

According to this conjecture, the holy of holies, which was ten cubits high, could not be a perfect square or cube like that of the same apartment in the temple, and in that of the New Jerusalem, which John saw in vision, “The length and the breadth and the height of it” would not be equal.

GERLACH’S CONJECTURE.—”That the boards were one cubit thick” (Commentary on the Pentateuch). This conjecture gives both the required breadth and length of the house within, which neither that of Pressland or Kalisch does. But the fatal objection to it

is that the boards are at least three or four times too thick, and their weight out of all proportion to that of the sockets they rested on. The weight of each such board—

Even allowing that the wood of which the tabernacle was constructed was very light, is there the least probability that a board would weigh about half-a-ton, when the two sockets it rested on weighed only 93 lbs. 12 oz. each? OUR OWN CONJECTURE.—We venture to hazard the following solution of the difficulty, believing it to be better than any other that has been brought forward. We have given it at p. 13, but repeat it here so that it may be more easily compared with the others: —That the boards were one-quarter of a cubit or four and a-half inches thick. That the corner ones were angular in shape, each consisting of two equal halves of an ordinary board, dovetailed or otherwise united, yet so as, when united, to have constituted one board. That one-half of each faced respectively the south and north sides (see diagram). By this conjecture one-third (half-a-cubit) of each corner board, together one cubit is added to the breadth of the house, making with the nine cubits of the six back boards ten cubits, the desired breadth of the house. Each at the joining below and above was further bound or coupled together by a ring or staple; or the meaning of the text may be that the staple or ring joined, coupled, or bound them to the boards next to them on both sides. The text is very obscure (Exodus 26:23-24): “Two boards shalt thou make for the corners; and they shall be coupled together beneath, and they shall be coupled” (Heb. “twins”) “together above the head of it into one ring” (from a Hebrew word signifying “to dip”); “thus shall it be for them both, they shall be for the two corners.”

Our own conjecture has the following advantages to recommend it—-(1) The internal length and breadth of the house are as required—thirty cubits long and ten cubits broad; (2) The boards are of a Reasonable thickness; (3) the corner boards are real corner boards; and though one-half of each laps over the last side boards, the symmetry of the framework is not thereby destroyed, as a glance at the diagrams will show, while this lapping over tends to compact the structure at the corners, and makes the thickness at these important points double. These corner boards have a connection both with the side and back walls, and are the means, along with the rings, of laying hold of the three walls and binding them into one; thus, besides their mere position, they differ in a peculiar and important sense from the other boards, and are well entitled to the name “corner boards;” (4) The text is illustrated. There is a sense in which these corner boards, each consisting of two halves, yet when united, forming but one whole, may be called “couples,” “pairs,” or “twins,” or which, when clasped at the foot and at the top by a ring or staple as illustrated above, may be said to have been “coupled together” and also “to the boards next to them.”