Exodus 25:13

Summary

The verse instructs the construction of carrying poles made from acacia wood, which are then to be covered entirely in gold. It uses two sequential verbs describing a two-step manufacturing process: first shaping the wood, then overlaying it with metal.

Key words

• 'a.Si.ta ("you will make", H6213H) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain of instructions; addressed to a singular "you".
• va.Dei ("poles of", H0905G) — masculine plural construct, grammatically bound to the following noun, meaning literally "poles of [wood]".
• 'a.Tzei ("wood(s) of", H6086G) — masculine plural construct, itself bound to shi.Tim, forming a double construct chain: "poles of woods of acacia".
• shi.Tim ("acacia", H7848) — masculine plural noun, specifying the type of wood.
• tzi.pi.Ta ("you will overlay", H6823) — piel sequential perfect, an intensive stem indicating a thorough covering action, distinct from the simple qal used for "make".

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built on two sequential perfect verbs joined by the narrative ve ("and", H9001): 'a.Si.ta ("you will make", H6213H) and tzi.pi.Ta ("you will overlay", H6823). This verb form, common in instructional/legal passages, continues a chain of commands begun earlier in the chapter, giving the sense of "and you shall do this, and then this" rather than an isolated statement.

The object of the first verb is expressed through a double construct chain: va.Dei ("poles of", H0905G) governs 'a.Tzei ("woods of", H6086G), which in turn governs shi.Tim ("acacia", H7848). This nested construct structure — "poles of woods of acacia" — is how Biblical Hebrew expresses a compound description of material and object without an adjective; English and Spanish translations flatten this into "poles of acacia wood".

The second verb, tzi.pi.Ta ("you will overlay", H6823), is in the piel stem, which often intensifies or gives factitive force to an action — here, causing the poles to become covered, rather than merely touching them with gold. Its direct object is marked by 'o.Ta (H0853), the untranslated object marker, carrying the third-person plural suffix -m ("them", H9038), referring back to the poles. The final noun za.Hav ("gold", H2091) stands without a preposition, functioning adverbially as the material of the overlay — literally "you will overlay them, gold."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew and Vulgate (Facies quoque vectes de lignis setim, et operies eos auro) closely match this two-step construction: make poles of acacia wood, overlay them with gold. The LXX text given, however, describes inserting the anaphoreis ("carrying poles") into the rings at the sides of the ark for the purpose of carrying it — content that in the Hebrew numbering corresponds to instructions found in the following verse, not to the making and overlaying of the poles described here.