Exodus 27:12

Summary

The verse specifies the measurements for the west side of the courtyard: the curtains along this side are to be fifty cubits wide, supported by ten pillars set into ten bases.

Key words

• Ro.chav ("breadth of", H7341) — construct form noun, linking to "the courtyard" that follows; establishes this clause as a measurement statement.
• cha.Tzer ("courtyard", H2691A) — definite common noun (marked by the article he, H9009), referring to the specific enclosure already introduced earlier in the chapter.
• f.'at- ("side of", H6285) — feminine construct noun, joined to Yam ("west", H3220H) to form the phrase "side of the west," i.e., the western side.
• ke.la.'Im ("curtains", H7050B) — masculine plural noun, the object being measured; no verb is present, so the noun stands as the subject of an implied measurement.
• 'a.mu.dei.Hem ("pillars, their", H5982G + H9028) — construct plural noun with third-person masculine plural suffix, meaning "their pillars," referring back to the curtains or the courtyard side just described.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is verbless, a common feature in architectural/measurement lists in this section of Exodus. It opens with ve-Rochav ("and the breadth of"), a construct chain that sets up a measurement clause: "the breadth of the courtyard, at the side of the west." This is followed by the noun kela'im ("curtains") standing in apposition, then the numeral phrase chamishim 'ammah ("fifty cubit[s]"), which functions as the measurement value without an explicit verb "to be" — the reader supplies it contextually, as is standard in Hebrew nominal clauses.

The second half of the verse repeats a formula seen elsewhere in this chapter: 'amudeihem 'asarah ("their pillars, ten") and ve-'adneihem 'asarah ("and their bases, ten"). Both 'amudei ("pillars of") and 'adnei ("bases of") are construct plural nouns bearing the third-person plural suffix -hem ("their"), which grammatically ties the pillars and bases back to the curtains or the courtyard side just mentioned. The numeral 'asarah ("ten", H6235) is feminine, agreeing with the implicit gender pattern used for round numbers in this listing style, repeated identically for both nouns.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders kela'im ("curtains") as ἱστία ("sails" or "awnings"), a term with maritime connotations not present in the Hebrew noun. The Vulgate uses tentoria ("tent-cloths" or "hangings"), closer to the Hebrew sense of "curtains." The Hebrew Yam ("west", literally "sea") is rendered contextually as "occidentem" (Vulgate) and κατὰ θάλασσαν (LXX, "toward the sea"), the latter preserving the literal Hebrew idiom where west is expressed via the direction of the Mediterranean Sea.