curtain
ye.ri.ah denotes fabric panels used to form or cover a tent structure, including poetic comparisons to an outspread covering.
The word chiefly denotes the individual fabric panels joined and fitted to make the tabernacle and its goat-hair tent covering. Elsewhere it names the coverings of tents and portable dwellings; in poetic clauses, such a covering supplies imagery for the heavens or for comparison.
Senses in use
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Joined panels of the tabernacle coverings · dominant
In Exodus 26:1 the plural form occurs in the instruction to make ten panels for the tabernacle, while Exodus 26:3 and Exodus 26:6 place the plural in clauses about joining sets of panels with clasps. Exodus 26:7 identifies another set as goat-hair panels for a tent over the tabernacle, and Exodus 36:10 and Exodus 36:13 narrate their joining in the completed work.
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Coverings belonging to tents and dwellings · common
The construct plural appears with a tent or tabernacle in Numbers 4:25, where the items are carried with other coverings. In Jeremiah 10:20 the APB renders the clause about no one any longer stretching the tent or raising its coverings; Jeremiah 49:29 likewise places them among possessions taken with tents and flocks. The singular in 2 Samuel 7:2 occurs in the contrast between a cedar house and the ark's dwelling in the midst of such a covering.
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Outspread covering in poetic comparison · occasional
In Psalm 104:2 the singular is used in the comparison in which the heavens are stretched out like a covering. In Song of Songs 1:5 the construct plural occurs in a comparison alongside the tents of Qedar, while Habakkuk 3:7 places the plural with the tents of Midian as they tremble.
In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB commonly presents the relevant clauses with “curtain” or “curtains,” especially in the tabernacle instructions and construction account. It also uses the image of a curtain for the heavens in Psalm 104:2; These English expressions indicate the clauses' presentation rather than a precise token-by-token rendering.