Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 26:3

"Five curtains shall be coupled together one to another; and [the other] five curtains shall be coupled one to another." — Exodus 26:3 (ASV)

The five curtains. —It is anomalous that the article should be used here. Probably it has crept in from “the curtains” of the preceding verse. The meaning is that five “breadths” should be sewn together to form one curtain, and five other “breadths” to form another, and then that the two curtains so formed should be joined into one by means of “loops” and “taches.” The object of making two curtains instead of one was clearly portability. The entire covering would have been too heavy and too bulky to be conveniently carried in one piece.