Six Wagons, Six Matriarchs, and the Seven Steps of Solomon's Throne

The chieftains of Israel rolled up to the newly raised Tabernacle with an oddly specific freight — six covered wagons and twelve oxen (Numbers 7:3). One wagon for every two tribes, one ox apiece. Any number would have moved a tent. Why six? The sages of Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:7 — a 3rd-to-6th century CE homiletical midrash attributed to Rav Kahana of Babylonia — turn that number under the light until it throws off six different flashes, and then walk the reader up a staircase of gold.

Why Did the Chieftains Bring Exactly Six Wagons?

Start with the awkward backstory. According to Louis Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews (published 1909-1928), the chieftains had held back during the original fundraising for the Mishkan, planning to sweep in at the last minute and cover any shortfall. The people beat them to it. By the time they reached for their purses, there was nothing left to buy except the jewels for the High Priest's breastplate. Humbled, they consulted the tribe of Issachar, the scholars who, as First Chronicles 12:33 puts it, "understood the signs of the times," and Issachar asked the simple engineering question nobody else had posed. Does the Tent of Meeting hover in the air? No. Then build wagons.

The Torah calls them egloth tzav, "covered wagons." In Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:8, Rabbi Nechemiah reads tzav as kamrasta — arched, rounded litters. Others hear "painted," striped like a turtle's shell, sky-blue according to Ginzberg. These were ceremonial vessels, not utility carts, which is why Moses — never eager to take a gift he had not himself commanded — stood frozen in front of them.

Six Wagons for the Six Matriarchs

Then Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:7 begins its count. Six wagons for the six days of Creation (Genesis 1). Six wagons for the six orders of the Mishnah — the great architecture of the oral Torah. Six wagons for the six lower firmaments. And six wagons, the list insists, for the six matriarchs: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah.

Pause there. The standard count is four. Most traditions list Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah and stop. The Pesikta quietly pulls Bilhah and Zilpah — the handmaids, the mothers of four of the twelve tribes — into the front row beside their famous sisters. Every wagon, by this reading, is a mother. The 6,276 texts of rabbinic aggadic midrash are full of quiet corrections like this, and this one insists that the whole line of Israelite motherhood — legal wife and handmaid alike — is honored when the Tabernacle rolls.

Six Laws to Limit a King

Rabbi Yochanan adds the layer that unlocks the rest. Six wagons correspond to the six commandments the Torah imposes on a Jewish king (Deuteronomy 17:16-19). He shall not multiply wives. He shall not multiply horses. He shall not multiply silver and gold. He shall not pervert judgment, show favoritism, or take a bribe. Six limits on royal appetite. Six guardrails bolted to the word "king" in Jewish law. Power in Israel is not absolute. It rides in a wagon bounded on six sides.

How Did Solomon's Throne Turn the Six Into Seven?

Now the midrash does something unforgettable. It walks the reader up the throne of Solomon. First Kings 10:19 says the throne had six steps. Pesikta de-Rav Kahana teaches that on each step a crier stood and called out one of the six royal commandments, rung after rung — no wives, no horses, no silver and gold, no perverted judgment, no favoritism, no bribes. Six steps. Six warnings. Six wagons.

And then the seventh. On the seventh step, just as the king lowered himself onto the throne, the crier spoke one final line — da lifnei mi attah yoshev, "Know before Whom you are sitting." Pirkei Avot 3:1 will later address that warning to every Jew. Here it is whispered to the king in the instant of coronation. Rabbi Acha adds that behind the throne rose a golden scepter, topped by a golden dove, and in the dove's beak hovered a golden crown that touched the king's head and did not touch it. Royalty in Israel was always one wingbeat away from being lifted off by a bird.

The Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century CE Hebrew chronicle preserved by Moses Gaster in 1899, sharpens the image further. Two golden lions flanked every step and opened their paws to reveal an inscription about justice as Solomon climbed. Clean and unclean animals faced each other — ox opposite lion, goat opposite wolf — and lifted the king from stair to stair until eagles lowered the crown onto his head. When liars came for judgment, the whole throne erupted in a roar. The Chronicles remembers that Ahasuerus spent three years trying to copy it and his craftsmen failed. Some architectures only God builds.

Why Six and Not Seven?

One last question. If Solomon climbed seven steps, why did the chieftains bring only six wagons? Rabbi Avin answers with a small smile. Six wagons correspond to the six visible firmaments — because the seventh heaven belongs to the King alone. You can correspond to everything below the throne. You do not measure the throne itself. The seventh is always the hidden one — the Shekhinah who holds it all, the final warning that turns a king into a servant.

And the Pesikta delivers one last promise. In Pesikta de-Rav Kahana 1:8, Moses worries that a wagon might shatter, that an ox might fall in harness. God answers that those twelve oxen never aged, never broke, never rotted. Rabbi Chama bar Chanina traces them all the way to Solomon, sacrificed finally at the Temple's dedication among the "twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred twenty thousand sheep" (1 Kings 8:63). The same beasts that pulled six wagons past Sinai climbed, in the end, the six steps of the throne they had always been building.

The Takeaway

The midrash is teaching a single stubborn pattern. Six is the number of every structure Moses and Solomon touched — Creation, Torah, motherhood, royal law, the wagons of the chieftains, the steps of a throne. The seventh is the one the human being does not own. Every wagon that carried the Tabernacle was a matriarch. Every step that lifted a king was a warning. And at the top of every staircase in Jewish memory, just before the crown, somebody whispers the same line — know before Whom you are sitting.