Exodus 25:14

Summary

The verse instructs that the poles be inserted into the rings positioned on the sides of the ark, so that the ark can be carried by means of them. The sentence continues a sequence of construction instructions addressed in the second person (likely Moses).

Key words

• he.ve.Ta ("you will put", H0935P) — hiphil (causative) verb in the sequential perfect form; it continues a chain of prior instructions and casts the action as something the addressee will cause to happen (literally "cause to enter/bring").
• ba.Dim ("poles", H0905G) — masculine plural noun, marked as definite by the preceding article and object marker; refers back to poles already introduced earlier in the passage.
• ta.ba.'Ot ("rings", H2885) — feminine plural noun, preceded by the preposition-plus-article combination ba ("in the"), marking the location into which the poles are inserted.
• tzal.'Ot ("[the] sides of", H6763) — feminine plural noun in construct state, meaning it must be joined to the following noun (ha'aron, "the ark") to form the phrase "the sides of the ark."
• Set ("carry", H5375H) — qal infinitive with the prefixed preposition la ("to"), producing a purpose clause: "in order to carry."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative vav on he.ve.Ta, syntactically linking this instruction to the preceding material as part of an ongoing sequence rather than a standalone command. The hiphil stem of this verb gives it a causative nuance — the subject is to bring about the poles' insertion, not simply "place" them in a neutral sense. The object markers ('et) before "the poles" and later before "the ark" are grammatical markers with no independent lexical content; they simply flag the direct objects of the respective verbs.

The phrase tzal.'Ot ha.'aron ("sides of the ark") is a construct chain: tzal.'Ot cannot stand alone grammatically and depends on ha.'aron to complete its meaning, functioning much like an English possessive ("the ark's sides"). The final clause uses the qal infinitive la.Set ("to carry") to express purpose — the poles are inserted specifically so that the ark can be carried — and the sentence closes with the pronominal suffix Hem ("them") attached to the preposition ba, referring back to the poles as the means of carrying.

Differences between versions

The LXX text given (ἐν τοῖς δακτυλίοις τῆς κιβωτοῦ ἔσονται οἱ ἀναφορεῖς ἀκίνητοι, "in the rings of the ark the poles shall be immovable") differs structurally from the Hebrew: it uses a future "to be" construction with the predicate adjective "immovable," rather than the Hebrew's causative verb of insertion followed by a purpose infinitive ("to carry"). The Vulgate (inducesque... ut portetur in eis, "you shall insert... so that it may be carried by them") follows the Hebrew's sequence-plus-purpose structure more closely, matching the causative action and the "to carry" clause.