By bars you may understand either,
1. Several rows or orders of bars, one bar beginning at the end of the other, and each containing four cubits in length, and altogether twenty cubits, which was the length of the tabernacle; or,
2. Single bars, which seem truer,
1. Because the word signifies bars, not rows of bars; and why should we go from the proper signification of the word without cause?
2. If bars be put for rows of bars, there must be five rows of bars on a side, there being so many bars said to be on a side. But the abettors of that opinion allow only four rows of bars on a side; and it is apparent the middle bar, which is one of the five, is but one single bar, Exodus 26:28, and therefore it may be presumed the rest were so too.
3. The name of the middle bar implies, that of the other four bars, two were above it, and two below it. Object. But if they were each single bars, reaching the whole length of the building, why is it said peculiarly of the middle bar, that it should reach from end to end, or from extremity to extremity ? Exodus 26:28. Answ. This may be peculiarly said of this, either because the other four might want something of the just length of the building, or because the middle bar might stand out beyond the two ends of it, for conveniency of the carriage of the building.