Exodus 26:15-25

"And thou shalt make the boards for the tabernacle of acacia wood, standing up. Ten cubits shall be the length of a board, and a cubit and a half the breadth of each board. Two tenons shall there be in each board, joined one to another: thus shalt thou make for all the boards of the tabernacle. And thou shalt make the boards for the tabernacle, twenty boards for the south side southward. And thou shalt make 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: and for the second side of the tabernacle, on the north side, twenty boards, and their forty sockets of silver; two sockets under one board, and two sockets under another board. And for the hinder part of the tabernacle westward thou shalt make six boards. And two boards shalt thou make for the corners of the tabernacle in the hinder part. And they shall be double beneath, and in like manner they shall be entire unto the top thereof unto one ring; thus shall it be for them both; for they shall be for the two corners, And there shall be eight boards, and their sockets of silver, sixteen sockets; two sockets under one board, and two sockets under another board."

See the chapter introduction for a discussion of the essential ambiguity of all this.

That Moses understood these instructions may be considered certain; and, besides that, he had the privilege of clarifying any of the problems through a direct appeal to God, a privilege no other has. "The Scriptures do not give us enough information to picture all this exactly."[14] Of course the value of all this can be fully appreciated. Each one of these sockets weighed out at 95 pounds of pure silver."[15] That is over 1,100 Troy ounces at about $8.00 an ounce (circa 1984) giving a total monetary value of about $9,000.00 for each socket. They would have been heavy enough to give the boards firm anchorage. The tenons would have been projections made at the bottom of the boards and designed to fit into corresponding receptacles in the sockets. They would have been either of wood or metal. Perhaps the protrusions on the edges of the common type of boards used to extend our dinner tables are an example of what was meant here. At least, Rawlinson thought so.[16]