Exodus 25:20

Summary

The verse describes the posture of the two keruvim ("cherubim", H3742) mounted on the kaporet ("atonement cover", H3727): their wings are spread upward and cover the cover, while their faces are turned toward each other and toward the kaporet itself.

Key words

• keruvim ("cherubim", H3742) — masculine plural noun, the subject of the whole sentence, repeated at the end of the verse to close the description (v.20 begins and ends with this word).
• porsei ("spreading out", H6566) — qal participle, masculine plural construct, describing an ongoing posture rather than a single completed action; grammatically bound to khenafayim ("wings", H3671) as "spreaders-of-wings."
• sokhekhim ("covering", H5526B) — qal participle, masculine plural, parallel in form to porsei; the two participles together depict simultaneous, continuous actions (spreading and covering) rather than sequential events.
• kaporet ("atonement cover", H3727) — feminine singular noun, named twice in the verse (lines 16 and 26), anchoring both the wing-covering action and the direction of the cherubim's gaze.
• ish...achiv ("each...brother", H0376I / H0251I) — idiomatic construction "a man to his brother," used with the possessive suffix hem ("their") on penei ("faces", H6440H) to express reciprocity: the faces are turned toward one another.

What the text says

The verse opens with ve-hayu ("and they will be", H1961), a sequential perfect that continues the instructions given in the preceding verses about the keruvim's construction. This verb sets the grammatical frame, but the descriptive weight falls on two qal participles, porsei ("spreading", H6566) and sokhekhim ("covering", H5526B). Because participles express ongoing or characteristic states rather than punctual actions, the Hebrew presents the cherubim's spread wings and covering posture as a continuous condition, not something that happens once. The construct chain porsei khenafayim ("spreaders of wings") ties the participle directly to khenafayim ("wings", H3671), a dual noun marking the natural pair.

The second half of the verse addresses the orientation of the faces. The phrase ish el-achiv ("each to his brother") is a fixed idiom for mutual facing, applied here to penei-hem ("their faces", H6440H + H9028). The sentence then repeats el-ha-kaporet ("to the atonement cover") before restating yihyu penei ha-keruvim ("the faces of the cherubim will be"), using the imperfect yihyu (H1961) rather than the earlier perfect hayu. This shift in verbal aspect separates the description of physical posture (wings, perfect) from the stated orientation of gaze (faces, imperfect), even though both clauses describe the same static arrangement.

Differences between versions

The Greek text supplied under LXXSWETE for this reference does not correspond to the Hebrew content of Exodus 25:20; it speaks instead of the hilastērion ("mercy seat") being placed above the ark and of depositing the testimony inside the ark, matter found elsewhere in Exodus 25. No comparison of specific lexical choices between the LXX and the Hebrew can therefore be made for this verse from the data given. The Vulgate renders kaporet as propitiatorium and additionally uses oraculum ("oracle") for the same object in the phrase "operientes oraculum," introducing a term with no direct one-to-one match among the Hebrew words listed.