Exodus 26:26-30

"And thou shalt make bars of acacia wood; five for the boards of the one side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards of the other side of the tabernacle, and five boards for the side of the tabernacle, for the hinder part westward. And the middle bar in the midst of the boards shall pass through from end to end. And thou shalt overlay the boards with gold, and make their rings of gold for places for the bars: and thou shalt overlay the bars with gold. And thou shalt rear up the tabernacle according to the fashion thereof which hath been showed thee in the mount."

"And the middle bar shall pass through from end to end ..." Since all of the external bars surrounding the tent were to be fitted into gold rings, it is apparently meant by this that the central one of those five external supporting bars running horizontally around the whole structure would be passed through the pillars themselves after the manner of extremely fine cabinet work.

"According to the fashion thereof ..." Unlike ourselves, Moses would have known from the pattern seen on the mount whether or not he was building a flat roof, and many other details which are simply not communicated in Moses' account of the instructions received. "Where the description was incomplete (and it was incomplete in many points) Moses was to follow the `pattern' he had seen in the mount."[17]