Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

This tent-cloth was two cubits longer than the inner one, as each piece was 30 cubits long instead of 28; it was also two cubits broader, as it was composed of 11 pieces, the eleventh only reckoning as two cubits, as it was to be laid double. Consequently there was an excess (העדף that which is over) of two cubits each way; and according to Exo 26:12 and Exo 26:13 this was to be disposed of in the following manner: "As for the spreading out of the excess in the tent-cloths, the half of the cloth in excess shall spread out over the back of the dwelling; and the cubit from here and from there in the excess in the length of the tent-cloths (i.e., the cubit over in the length in each of the cloths) shall be spread out on the sides of the dwelling from here and from there to cover it." Now since, according to this, one half of the two cubits of the sixth piece which was laid double was to hang down the back of the tabernacle, there only remained one cubit for the gable of the front. It follows, therefore, that the joining of the two halves with loops and clasps would come a cubit farther back, than the place where the curtain of the holy of holies divided the dwelling. But in consequence of the cloth being a cubit longer in every direction, it nearly reached the ground on all three sides, the thickness of the wooden framework alone preventing it from reaching it altogether.