Numbers 4:6 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

By the covering of badgers skins the ark was secured from the injuries of the weather:. Object. How could these staves be put in, when they were never to be taken out, Exodus 25:15, compared with 1 Kings 8:8. Answ.

1. These places may speak of the staves while the ark and tabernacle stood, but when they were to be removed the posture of all things was altered.

2. The Hebrew verb doth not signify putting in, but barely putting, or placing, or disposing, and may be understood not of putting the staves into the rings, wherein they constantly remained, but of the putting of them either upon their shoulders to try and fit them for carriage, or into the holes or receptacles which probably were made in these coverings for the receiving and covering of these gilded staves, to keep them both from the touch of the Levites, and from the inconveniences of bad weather.

Numbers 4:6

6 And shall put thereon the covering of badgers' skins, and shall spread over it a cloth wholly of blue, and shall put in the staves thereof.