Tache
Tache (קֶרֶם, keres; Sept. κρίκος; Vulg. circulus, fibula). The word thus rendered occurs only in the description of the structure of the tabernacle and its fittings (Ex 26:6,11,33; Ex 35:11; Ex 36:13; Ex 39:33), and has usually been thought to indicate the small hooks by which a curtain is suspended to the rings whereon it hangs, or connected vertically, as in the case of the vail of the Holy of Holies, with the loops of another curtain. The history of the English word is philologically interesting, as presenting points of contact with many different languages. The Gaelic and Breton branches of the Celtic family give tac, or tackh in the sense of a nail or hook; The latter meaning appears in the attaccare, staccare, of Italian; in the attacher, detacher, of French. On the other hand, in the tak of Dutch, and the Zacke of German, we have a word of like sound and kindred meaning. Our Anglo-Saxon taccan and English take (to seize as with a hook are probably connected with it. In later use the word has slightly altered both its form and meaning, and the tack is no longer a hook, but a small flat-headed' nail (comp. Diez, Roman. Wörterb. s v. "Tacco").
The philological relations. of the Hebrew word are likewise interesting. It comes from the obscure root קָרִס, kards, which occurs only in Isa 46:1 ("stoopeth," Sept. συνετρίβη; Vulg. contritus est) as a synonym of כָּרִע ("boweth down") in the parallel hemistich, and is therefore understood by Gesenius and Fürst to signify to bend, or by Miuhlau to be round (like קָרִר). The only derivatives, besides the proper name Kiros (קרוֹס, Ne 7:47) or Keros (קֵרֹס, Ezr 2:44), are the term in question and קִרסֹל, karsol, the ankle (occurring only in the dual, "feet," 2Sa 22:37; Ps 18:36 [37]). Prof. Paine (author of The Tabernacle, etc.), in a private note, ingeniously traces the connection between these two objects, which a diagram will clearly illustrate.
As the loops are explicitly stated to have been in the selvage of the curtains, the "taches," if meant as hooks to join them edgewise, would present the appearance in the annexed cut, which is substantially the representation of those interpreters who have adopted this idea. Now, to say nothing for the present of the gap thus left in the roof, we find that these "taches," being exactly fifty for each set of "curtains," bear no special numerical relation to the general size of the curtains themselves, the edges so joined being in one case thirty and in the other twenty-eight cubits long; whereas all the other numbers and dimensions about the building have definite proportions to each other. Nor, if the sixth or extra breadth of the goats-hair cloth was sewed in the ordinary way like the other five, can we divine any good reason for resorting to this singular method of joining the remaining selvages.
There are other and still graver difficulties in the ordinary plan of connecting these sheets, which would immediately be revealed in the actual attempt at reconstruction, and will be anticipated by any one familiar with tent architecture.
(a.) The "vail" hung exactly under the "taches" (Ex 26:33). But as the colored sheets (which of course must have been innermost) were each twenty cubits wide and twenty-eight cubits long, if they were spread thus combined over the ridge-pole, the suture between them which these "hooks" formed could in no case have well tallied with this position: had they been stretched lengthwise of the building (as their close correspondence in length would indicate), the joint also would have been the same direction, i.e. at right angles with the line of the vail; if crosswise of the building (as both Riggenbach and Fergusson suppose), then the line of the suture and that of the "vail" could only have coincided on the supposition that the entire extra ten cubits breadth of the embroidered "curtains" was thrown outside the rear of the edifice, where it would be utterly useless and exposed to the weather. Nor could the requirements of the text cited be met by using these colored sheets singly in this manner: not longitudinally for the same reason as before; not transversely, for then their breadth would not cover both the apartments.
⇒See also the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
(b.) The goats-hair sheets, if combined by such a contrivance as an S hook, would be equally impracticable: placed longitudinally on the ridge (as their length would emphatically indicate by this second repetition of the thirty cubits), they would certainly leak intolerably at the joint, unless this were brought exactly at the peak, which the odd number of the "curtains" in this set (11) prevents: placed transversely, even in the most favorable manner (Fergusson's), so as to break joints" with the suture in the sheets under them, they must (as a corollary from the above combination of the latter) have had their extra width (fourteen cubits) project wholly beyond the rear of the building, leaving nothing for a porch" (which Fergusson imagines).
(c.) In any case it would have been a bad arrangement to make. the suture in either set of roof canvas come exactly over so choice a piece of drapery as the "vail" was; for some drip must have been apprehended, or an embroidered lining (a delicate article with which to stop a leak) would not have been provided-to say nothing of Fergusson's idea that the sheep-skin ad fur robes may have been for the purpose of covering the joint! In short, the bare fact of leaving such a crack in the roof would have been an irremediable blunder, which it is strange that a professional architect should' make. On Riggenbach's theory of a flat roof, all the rain would inevitably have poured through this crevice directly upon the vail. Jehovah planned better than this, we may be sure. SEE TABERNACLE.
