Catholic Commentary
The Acacia Wood Frames, Sockets, and Bars (Part 1)
20He made the boards for the tabernacle of acacia wood, standing up.21Ten cubits was the length of a board, and a cubit and a half the width of each board.22Each board had two tenons, joined to one another. He made all the boards of the tabernacle this way.23He made the boards for the tabernacle, twenty boards for the south side southward.24He made forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards: two sockets under one board for its two tenons, and two sockets under another board for its two tenons.25For the second side of the tabernacle, on the north side, he made twenty boards26and their forty sockets of silver: two sockets under one board, and two sockets under another board.27For the far part of the tabernacle westward he made six boards.
Exodus 36:20–27 describes Bezalel constructing the wooden frame walls of the Tabernacle using acacia planks approximately fifteen feet tall and twenty-seven inches wide, each secured with two tenons into silver sockets. The passage details the south wall (twenty boards, forty silver sockets), the symmetrical north wall, and the beginning of the western wall, establishing the structural foundation of the sanctuary on redemptive atonement.
Every board of God's sanctuary stands because redemption was paid in silver beneath it—the Tabernacle's foundation is literally the price of atonement.
Commentary
Exodus 36:20 — "He made the boards for the tabernacle of acacia wood, standing up." The subject is Bezalel (introduced in 36:1–2), the Spirit-filled craftsman appointed by God. "Boards" (Hebrew qĕrāšîm) are better understood as wide planks or frames — solid, structural elements rather than thin slabs. Acacia wood (ʿăṣê šiṭṭîm) is the same incorruptible desert timber used throughout the Tabernacle furnishings (the Ark, the altar, the table). Its selection is not incidental: acacia is dense, resistant to decay, and native to the Sinai wilderness — a wood that endures. The phrase "standing up" signals their vertical orientation, establishing the walls as upright, dignified supports for the dwelling of the Most High.
Exodus 36:21 — Dimensions: ten cubits by one and a half cubits. A cubit approximates 18 inches (45 cm), placing each board at roughly 15 feet tall and 27 inches wide. These are not modest dimensions. The precision echoes the instructions given in Exodus 26:15–16, affirming that Bezalel executes the divine blueprint without deviation. Catholic tradition has always seen in this exactness a lesson about obedience — the craftsman does not improve upon the design of God.
Exodus 36:22 — "Two tenons, joined to one another." Each board possessed two projecting pegs (yādôt, literally "hands") at its base, which locked into corresponding silver sockets. The word yādôt — "hands" — is theologically resonant: the boards reach downward with "hands" that grasp their foundation. The phrase "joined to one another" (mĕšullābōt) suggests a dovetailing, an interlocking that creates structural unity from individual pieces. No board stands alone; each is bound to its neighbor.
Exodus 36:23–24 — The south wall: twenty boards, forty silver sockets. The precise doubling — two sockets per board — ensures stability. Silver, used for the sockets (ʾădānîm, "bases" or "pedestals"), was the metal of redemption: each Israelite male had paid a half-shekel of silver as a "ransom" during the census (Exodus 30:11–16; 38:25–27). The entire foundation of the Tabernacle thus literally rests on the silver of atonement. Every board that stands upright does so because a ransom has been paid beneath it.
Exodus 36:25–26 — The north wall: a perfect mirror. The north side replicates the south in every particular — twenty boards, forty silver sockets. This bilateral symmetry is not merely aesthetic. It reflects the divine order: no part of the dwelling of God is lopsided or neglected. The symmetry of the walls anticipates the harmony and balance that characterize the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:16).
Exodus 36:27 — The western wall: six boards. The rear of the Tabernacle — the side farthest from the entrance and nearest to the Holy of Holies — begins here with six boards. Verses 28–30 (the following cluster) will complete this wall with corner boards and the calculation of eight total. The west was the direction of the innermost sanctuary, where the Ark of the Covenant and the divine Presence (Šĕkînāh) would ultimately rest. The construction moves, symbolically, from the periphery inward toward the heart of holiness.
Typological reading: Church Fathers read the Tabernacle as a type of multiple realities simultaneously: the Church, the Body of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the soul of the believer. Origen (Homilies on Exodus 9) interprets the boards as souls of the faithful — each one cut from incorruptible wood (baptismal grace), made to stand upright (the upright life), resting on the silver of redemption (the Blood of Christ). Just as no single board constitutes the sanctuary, no soul dwells in God's presence in isolation — they are mĕšullābōt, "joined to one another," in the communion of the Church.
Catholic Commentary
Catholic tradition reads the Tabernacle not as an obsolete ceremonial relic but as a living type that finds its fulfillment in Christ, the Church, and the sacraments. Several threads of significance are particularly illuminated here.
The Church as God's Dwelling Built on Redemption: The silver sockets are the most theologically charged detail in this passage. Exodus 38:25–27 confirms that the 100 talents of silver used for these very foundations came from the census ransom — one half-shekel per Israelite soul. The entire structure of the Tabernacle, therefore, stands on atoning silver. The Catechism teaches that the Church is "the Body of Christ" and that Christ "purchased [her] with his own blood" (Acts 20:28; CCC 766). The Tabernacle frames this truth architecturally: every board that rises toward heaven does so only because a redemptive price has been paid at its feet.
Incorruptibility and the Resurrection: St. Cyril of Alexandria and later medieval commentators noted that acacia wood's resistance to decay prefigures the incorruptibility of Christ's body (cf. Psalm 16:10, Acts 2:27) and, by extension, the glorified bodies of the saints. The material of the sanctuary walls participates, even in its woodenness, in the logic of resurrection.
Unity in the Body: The interlocking yādôt — the "hands" of each board fitted into shared sockets — speaks to the Church's unity. The Second Vatican Council's Lumen Gentium (§7) describes the Church as one body with many members, all organically united: "the head is Christ." No plank of the Tabernacle stands in isolated self-sufficiency; neither does any member of the faithful. The silver foundation is shared; the interlocking is mutual.
Mary as Type of the Church/Tabernacle: Patristic and medieval theology (St. Ambrose, On Virgins; the Akathist Hymn) identifies Mary as the true Tabernacle — the one who bore the divine Presence in her body. The boards standing upright, incorrupt, and grounded in redemption faintly echo her Immaculate Conception and her role as Theotokos, the God-bearer whose sinless humanity provided the "frame" for the Incarnation.
For Today
This passage is a challenge to a spirituality of individualism. The boards of the Tabernacle are individually shaped, each with its own dimensions and identity, yet the sanctuary only becomes the dwelling of God when they are locked together — "joined to one another" — and set upon a shared foundation of redemption.
For contemporary Catholics, the application is concrete. The parish, the diocese, the universal Church — these are not optional additions to personal faith but the very structure through which God dwells among His people. A board unmoored from its sockets, lying on the ground, is still acacia wood; but it is no longer part of the sanctuary. Likewise, a baptized Catholic disconnected from the sacramental life and the communion of the Church retains their baptismal dignity but is no longer contributing to — or sheltered within — the living Temple.
Furthermore, the precision of Bezalel's obedience invites an examination of how we approach liturgical and sacramental life. Do we bring careful attention and fidelity to the "measurements" God has given — the forms of prayer, the discipline of the sacraments, the teachings of the Church — or do we improvise? The craftsman who follows the divine blueprint exactly is the one through whom God's dwelling is built.
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