Two tenons must be connected to each other for each frame. Make all the frames of the tabernacle in this way.
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.
Commenting on Exodus 26:15-30
And thou shalt make the boards for the tabernacle,.... As in the manner before described, so in number as follows: twenty boards on the south side southward; which being a cubit and a half broad, made the length of the tabernacle fifteen yards according to the common account; but if these were cubits of twenty one inches, then its length was much greater.
Exo 26:17 Every board was to have two ידות (lit., hands or holders) to hold them upright, pegs therefore; and they were to be “bound to one another” (משׁלּב, from שׁלב in Chald. to connect, hence שׁלבּים in 1Ki 7:28, the corner plates that hold together the four sides of a chest), not “pegged into one another,” but joined together by a fastening dovetailed into...