Exodus 28:31

Summary

This verse instructs that the robe worn under the ephod is to be made entirely of one material: tekhelet ("violet stuff", H8504), a blue-violet dyed fabric. The sentence is a direct construction command continuing a series of tabernacle-vestment instructions.

Key words

• 'a.Si.ta ("you will make", H6213) — qal sequential perfect, second person masculine singular; continues a chain of prior instructions with the force of an ongoing command ("and you shall make...").
• me.'Il ("robe of", H4598) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning it is grammatically bound to what follows ("robe of the ephod"), not a free-standing word.
• 'e.Fod ("ephod", H0646) — masculine singular noun, the garment to which the robe is attached; preceded by the definite article ha ("the", H9009).
• ke.Lil ("an entirety of", H3632) — adjective in construct form, functioning almost adverbially to mean "wholly" or "entirely made of," governing the material noun that follows.
• te.Khe.let ("violet stuff", H8504) — feminine singular noun naming the dye/material; no article, indicating it names a substance/quality rather than a specific object.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav (H9001) attached to 'a.Si.ta, marking this as the next command in a sequence rather than an isolated statement — a stylistic feature common in the instructions for tabernacle furnishings and priestly garments. The core clause is built on a chain of construct relationships: me.'Il ("robe of") is bound to ha-'eFod ("the ephod"), producing "the robe of the ephod" as a single conceptual unit, i.e., the specific robe associated with that garment, not just any robe.

The phrase ke.Lil te.Khe.let is itself a construct pair functioning adjectivally on the whole robe: ke.Lil ("an entirety of") takes te.Khe.let ("violet stuff") as its construct complement, yielding a meaning close to "completely of tekhelet." This construction emphasizes uniformity of material — the robe is not partially dyed or trimmed with this color, but entirely composed of it. The construct chain, common in Biblical Hebrew for expressing material composition, cannot be rendered in translation without the periphrasis "made entirely of."

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (totam hyacinthinam, "entirely hyacinth-colored") and the Spanish/English translations given (RV1909, BSB, SBLIBRE) match the Hebrew sense of a wholly blue-violet robe. The LXX text supplied here, however, does not correspond to this content: it describes Aaron ministering, the audible sound during his service, and his entering and exiting the sanctuary "so that he does not die" — material found elsewhere in Exodus 28 (concerning bells on the robe's hem). This reflects a divergence in the specific content aligned to this verse number in the LXX numbering as presented, rather than a translation variant of the same clause.