Exodus 26:23-25

23-25. Two boards… for the corners The exact form and purpose of these boards it seems impossible to determine with absolute certainty . They were to be somehow coupled together at base and top unto one ring. Some have thought that the two westward corners consisted of two boards so fastened together at right angles as to make one double piece from top to bottom. This of course would add one board, a cubit and a half less the thickness, to the length of the tabernacle. Another solution is, to suppose that the boards for the two corners were to be made double (Hebrews twins) and clasped together with rings beneath and above, so as to form one united piece just double the width of the other boards. Thus the eight boards which filled up the west end would be equal in width to ten other boards, and make the breadth of the tabernacle one half its length. But according to Philo ( Life of Moses, 3: 7) and Josephus, ( Ant., 3: 6, 3,) and all Jewish tradition, the dimensions of the tabernacle were thirty by ten cubits, and this corresponds with the relative measures of the Solomonic temple. 1 Kings 6:2. It is better, therefore, to suppose these corner boards to have been composed each of two narrow boards coupled together at right angles, and made to lap around the northwest and southwest corners . By joining the two pieces so as to allow one half a cubit of each corner board to fill out the supposed ten cubits interior breadth of the tabernacle, we have a simple and reasonable explanation. The six boards made nine cubits of this breadth, and the two corner boards supplied the other cubit. Thus also, as Dr. James Strong has observed in his recent work on the Tabernacle, “the whole angle would be greatly strengthened, as well as ornamented, by the overlapping on the lower side.” The west end, accordingly, was made up of eight boards, and each of these, corner boards as well as the rest, had two sockets, like those on the north and south sides. Josephus says: “As to the wall behind, where the six boards together made up only nine cubits, they made two other pillars, and cut them out of one cubit, which they placed in the corners, and made them equally fine with the other.”