Exodus 25:18

Summary

The verse instructs the making of two keruvim ("cherubim", H3742) of gold, formed as a single hammered piece, positioned at the two ends of the kapporet ("atonement cover", H3727). The Hebrew describes both the material/technique and the placement in the same sentence.

Key words

• ta'aseh ("you will make", H6213H) — qal imperfect, second masculine singular; expresses an ongoing or future instruction, distinct from the sequential perfect 'asita earlier in the verse, which continues the narrative chain of commands.
• keruvim ("cherubim", H3742) — masculine plural noun, the object being fabricated, modified by the dual numeral shenayim ("two", H8147).
• miqshah ("hammered work", H4749) — feminine singular noun describing the technique: a single piece of metal worked by hammering, not cast or assembled from parts.
• otam ("them", H9038) — pronominal suffix attached to the object marker 'et (H0853), referring back to the keruvim as the object of ta'aseh.
• kapporet ("atonement cover", H3727) — feminine singular noun with definite article ha (H9009), the object at whose ends the keruvim are placed.

What the text says

The verse opens with ve'asita ("and you will make", H6213H), a qal sequential perfect that continues a chain of prior instructions in the passage. The object is shenayim keruvim zahav — "two cherubim, gold" — where zahav ("gold", H2091) functions appositionally to specify the material without a preposition, a common construction in Biblical Hebrew for indicating substance.

The sentence then restates the making with a second verb, miqshah ta'aseh otam — literally "hammered-work you will make them." Here miqshah is placed before the verb ta'aseh, a fronting that puts emphasis on the manufacturing technique rather than on the action itself. The object otam ("them", H9038) explicitly refers back to the keruvim introduced earlier, confirming that the two cherubim mentioned in the first clause are the same object being specified in the second clause regarding technique.

The final phrase, mishnei qetzot hakapporet, uses two construct-state terms: shnei ("two of", H8147) and qetzot ("ends of", H7098), both governing hakapporet ("the atonement cover", H3727). This construct chain indicates that the cherubim are positioned at the two ends of the kapporet, without a verb of motion or placement — the location is expressed nominally, attached to the object being fabricated.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) restructures the verse into two sentences using χερούβ ("cherub") in the singular for each side ("one cherub... and one cherub...") before summarizing with "the two cherubim on the two sides," a distributive phrasing not present in the Hebrew, which uses the plural keruvim throughout. The Vulgate renders miqshah as "productiles" ("drawn out" or "extended," i.e., wrought), paired with "aureos" ("golden"), collapsing the Hebrew's two-clause structure (material, then technique) into a single descriptive phrase. The Hebrew term kapporet ("atonement cover") is translated by the Vulgate as "oraculi" ("of the oracle"), a term not descriptive of the object's material function as in the Hebrew root.