22 And for the sides of the tabernacle westward thou shalt make six boards.

23 And two boards shalt thou make for the corners of the tabernacle in the two sides.

24 And they shall be coupled together beneath, and they shall be coupled together above the head of it unto one ring: thus shall it be for them both; they shall be for the two corners.

25 And they shall be eight boards, and their sockets of silver, sixteen sockets; two sockets under one board, and two sockets under another board.

Yesterday we heard how the sides of the tabernacle would be formed by erecting twenty boards side-by-side, now we hear of the back of the tabernacle, on the West side, which was to be made of six main boards and two corner boards. It is not specified if there was anything unique about the corner boards. Perhaps they were not as wide as the others, or perhaps they were folded in ninety-degrees to form a corner, or perhaps they were laid at an angle between the back and the side of the tabernacle.

In any case, the width of the tabernacle seems to be, at most, eight boards at one-and-a-half cubits each, or 12 cubits in all. As mentioned yesterday, the length of the tabernacle was 30 cubits and the height was 10, so it was 2.5 times as long as it was wide, 3 times as long as it was tall and only slightly wider than it was tall.

The first curtain laid over the tabernacle was twenty-eight cubits long, and the second was thirty. Covering from the north side to the south side would be 10 cubits for the height of one wall, 10 cubits for the height of the other, and the 12 cubits mentioned for the width in today’s verses, coming to a total of 32 cubits, which would suggest that neither of the curtains could reach all the way from end-to-end. This might mean that the curtains ended in ropes and that were staked into the ground, or it might mean that the socketed parts of the boards were embedded in the ground, which would make all the walls shorter, which could then be covered by both layers of curtain.

One last point is how the corners are “coupled” together at the top and the bottom. This would suggest that there was some sort of fastener that would hold the north wall and the south wall to the back. This is the first we’ve heard of supporting elements to hold the tabernacle as one, but we will hear more of these elements in tomorrow’s verses.

Note: It can be difficult to visualize some of the structures described in these verses. Here is an excellent and extremely focused series of animations that show the visual form of the temple and its instruments, built up verse-by-verse from the Exodus record: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpjohncRg94EZ55nJrbaKfi-lfeo3MFgl&si=6wm1J9Sdnu7LKYC_