TEN’ON , n. [L. teneo, to hold.] In building and cabinet work, the end of a piece of timber, which is fitted to a mortise for insertion, or inserted, for fastening two pieces of timber together. (Websters)
By using this type of connector, common in traditional Chinese architecture, the boards could interlock with perfect fit, without requiring glues or fasteners, and allows the wood to expand or contract according to humidity.
Tenon (in Hebrew יד or yad) means hands. It also has many figurative uses, such as describing someone who would be a right-hand man (assistant) or in the hand of (in the custody of). The only place in the bible that yad is translated as tenon is in the tabernacle description in Exodus (26:17,19 and 36:22,24).
“Exo 26:19 You shall make forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards: two sockets under each of the boards for its two tenons [hands].”
Yad occurs 1536 times in the old testament, and only four of those times is it translated tenon, all four of those times being in the context of describing the tabernacle construction in Exodus 26 and 36. Most of the time, yad means hands, or the work of the hands.
- Moses stretched out his hand (same word) to instigate many of the plagues.
- God stretched out his hand (same word) to smite people with pestilence.
- When Isaac felt Jacob’s hands to identify that he was Esau, yad is the word used for hand (Gen. 27:2).
Yad also appears to have a less frequent secondary meaning as an edge, border, or boundary. The “coasts” of Cypress (Num 24:24) and the “side” of the great River Tigris (Dan 10:4) are also uses of yad.