The Road Not Taken…. The Silk Road
תולעת שני TOAL[A]T SHaNeeY, as a combination in Exodus 25:4, is somehow translated as scarlet or crimson wool or fine linen. Both words, separately, are somehow rendered "scarlet" or "crimson." There are other Edenic words for wool or fine linen, and neither material is fitting for the gold and jewels of the Tabernacle, where even construction braces are pure silver.
תולעת TOAL[A]T means "worm." Scarlet, and especially crimson dye IS associated with a worm. But a worm has not yet been found to produce wool or fine linen.
The material famously produced by worms, and material luxurious enough for the tabernacle is SILK.
But SILK in antiquity was only made in China. Could SILK be obtained by Israelites in the wilderness? Yes, there's a reason why the long trade route from Egypt to China was called the "SILK ROAD." The Israelites had expensive fineries thrown at them to urge them to leave Egypt. They also had the money and jewelry (also from the drowned Egyptian cavalry) to buy SILK from caravans of merchants from the SilK Road. This camelback shopping mall is first documented in Genesis 37:25. This is also how the Tabernacle-builders got waterproof sealskins from the Persian Gulf , the תחש TahK[H]ahSH or (S)ahK[H]ahSH – see the "SEECATCH" entry.
Red is still China's favorite, royal and auspicious color. Research also reveals that 1) red silk was forbidden for non-nobility for the first few dynasties, 2) that it takes 40 days and nights before silkworm larvae can spin their cocoons, and 3) that silk was found in early Egyptian mummies.
Without the evidence of global Edenics data, one cannot get from תולעת TOAL[A]'T to SILK. But ת can be (S), and ע Ayin can be a guttural. תולעת read as (S)oaL'GHe(S) does resemble the sources of English SILK: Old English SILK is siolic, and in Old Prussian SILK is silkas.
There is a word for "silk," but משי MeSHeeY only appears once, in Ezekiel 16:10, in a context showing that silk might have been lumped in with "fine linen."
שני SHaNeey remains a problem. סין $eeYN in Isaiah 49:12 is said to mean "China."
Perhaps שני is a spelling variant of סני $eeNeeY, Chinese?
For other entries in The E-Word Digital Dictionary that document sloppy, prejudiced mistranslations by "bible scholars" see entries like "CORNER," JACKAL"
Isaac Elchanan Mozeson: content provider, Kinneret Pau Mozeson: art director www.edenics.org