Exodus 26:13

Summary

The verse specifies that the extra cubit of curtain material on each side—beyond what covers the tabernacle's roof—will hang down over the sides of the structure. This overhang, one cubit on either side, serves to cover the tabernacle's frame.

Key words

• 'aMah ("cubit", H0520A) — feminine singular noun, repeated twice with the article ha and preceded by mi-zeh ("from this"), forming the idiom "the one cubit on this side... the one cubit on that side," marking the measurement of overlap on each flank.
• 'oDef ("surplus", H5736) — qal participle, masculine singular, used substantively (with the article and preposition ba-) as "the excess," describing the material that remains beyond the tent's exact covering length.
• saRuach ("projecting/hanging", H5628) — adjective, masculine singular, describing the resulting state of the surplus fabric: it is in a hanging or spread-out condition over the sides.
• yihYeh ("it will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, third person masculine singular, linking the subject (the surplus) to its predicate state (saRuach), expressing a durative or resultative future condition rather than a single completed action.
• le-khasso-to ("to cover it", H3680 + H9033) — piel infinitive construct with prefixed preposition le- and third-person masculine singular suffix, expressing purpose: the reason the fabric hangs down is precisely so that it covers the tabernacle's structure.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built around a doubled prepositional phrase, mi-zeh... u-mi-zeh ("from this... and from this"), which functions idiomatically to mean "on one side... and on the other." The subject of the sentence is ha-'aMah mi-zeh ve-ha-'aMah mi-zeh, "the cubit on this side and the cubit on that side," referring to the extra length of fabric beyond what is needed to cover the tent proper. This subject is further qualified by ba-'oDef be-'orekh yeri'ot ha-'ohel, "in the surplus, in the length of the curtains of the tent" — a participial construction treating "surplus" as a substantive noun describing the excess material relative to the curtains' total length.

The predicate uses yihYeh saRuach, an imperfect verb of "being" combined with an adjective meaning "hanging" or "projecting." This construction (verb of being + adjective) expresses an ongoing or characteristic state rather than a single event: the surplus fabric will characteristically hang over tzidei ha-mishkan, "the sides of the tabernacle," again on both sides (mi-zeh u-mi-zeh). The clause closes with the piel infinitive le-khasso-to, "to cover it," expressing the purpose of this arrangement — the hanging fabric exists in order to cover the structure.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the doubled Hebrew subject with πῆχυν ἐκ τούτου καὶ πῆχυν ἐκ τούτου ("a cubit from this and a cubit from this"), closely matching the Hebrew's repeated mi-zeh structure. The Vulgate instead uses ex una parte... ex altera, an equivalent but less literal rendering of "on one side... on the other," and adds qui plus est ("which is more") to render the participial 'oDef ("surplus"). The Hebrew participle saRuach ("projecting," an adjective) is translated in the Vulgate as protegens ("protecting"), which shifts the sense from describing a physical state (hanging) toward describing an action (protecting), a nuance not present in the Hebrew adjective itself.