Exodus 28:8
וְחֵשֶׁב אֲפֻדָּתוֹ אֲשֶׁר עָלָיו כְּמַעֲשֵׂהוּ מִמֶּנּוּ יִהְיֶה זָהָב תְּכֵלֶת וְאַרְגָּמָן וְתוֹלַעַת שָׁנִי וְשֵׁשׁ מָשְׁזָֽר׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
Tap a word to see its entry
✦ The same verse in five languages
וְחֵ֤שֶׁב אֲפֻדָּתוֹ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָלָ֔יו כְּמַעֲשֵׂ֖הוּ מִמֶּ֣נּוּ יִהְיֶ֑ה זָהָ֗ב תְּכֵ֧לֶת וְאַרְגָּמָ֛ן וְתוֹלַ֥עַת שָׁנִ֖י וְשֵׁ֥שׁ מָשְׁזָֽר׃
καὶ τὸ ὕφασμα τῶν ἐπωμίδων, ὅ ἐπ’ αὐτῶ, κατὰ τὴν ποίησιν ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἔσται ἐκ χπυσί καὶ πορφύρας καὶ κοκκίνου διανενησμ
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Ipsa quoque textura et cuncta operis varietas erit ex auro et hyacintho, et purpura, coccoque bis tincto, et bysso retorta.
El cinturón que va sobre el efod formará una sola pieza con él, y estará hecho del mismo material: hilo de oro, y lino fino de color azul, púrpura y escarlata.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y el artificio de su cinto que está sobre él, será de su misma obra, de lo mismo; de oro, cárdeno, y púrpura, y carmesí, y lino torcido.
And the skillfully woven waistband of the ephod must be of one piece, of the same workmanship — with gold, with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and with finely spun linen.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Exodus 28:8 describes the "cheshev" (band or waistband) of the ephod, specifying that it must be attached to the ephod, made in the same workmanship, and constructed from the same materials as the ephod itself: gold, violet, purple, scarlet stuff, and twisted fine linen.
Key words
- Chesheb ("[the] girdle of", H2805) — masculine singular construct noun, grammatically bound to the following word, indicating it is "the band OF the ephod," not a separate item.
- 'aphuddato ("ephod", H0642) — feminine singular construct with 3rd person suffix "its," meaning "its ephod-band," linking the band possessively/structurally to the ephod.
- ma'aseh ("workmanship", H4639G) — masculine singular construct with suffix, in the phrase ke-ma'asehu ("like its workmanship"), establishing that the band's craftsmanship must match that of the ephod.
- yihyeh ("it will be", H1961) — Qal imperfect, 3rd masculine singular, expressing a future/prescriptive state: what the band "will be" or "is to be" made of.
- mashezar ("twisted", H7806) — Hophal passive participle, masculine singular, describing linen that has undergone a twisting process (a passive, completed action applied to the material).
What the text says
The verse opens with the construct chain chesheb 'aphuddato ("the band of its ephod"), which grammatically fuses the band to the ephod as a single referential unit rather than presenting it as an independent object. The relative clause 'asher 'alav ("which [will be] on it") specifies the band's position — attached to or upon the ephod — using the preposition 'al with a pronominal suffix referring back to the ephod.
The phrase ke-ma'asehu mimmenu yihyeh stacks three elements: a comparative ke- ("like/according to"), a construct noun with suffix ("its workmanship"), and the preposition min ("from") with suffix ("from it/the same"), followed by the finite verb yihyeh ("it will be"). This sequence asserts both continuity of craftsmanship and continuity of material origin between the band and the ephod before the verse ever names the materials themselves. The materials are then listed as a simple string of nouns — zahav ("gold", H2091), tekhelet ("violet stuff", H8504), 'argaman ("purple", H0713), tola'at shani ("scarlet stuff of scarlet", H8438B + H8144), and shesh mashezar ("fine linen, twisted", H8336B + H7806) — without repeated conjunctions before each term in the Hebrew list structure, though the provided vocalized text does insert ve- before several items.
The final term, mashezar, is a Hophal passive participle, meaning the fine linen is described as having been twisted, a completed process applied to the material, rather than an active verb of twisting performed by an agent named in this clause.
Differences between versions
The Vulgate (VULCLEM) renders tola'at shani as "coccoque bis tincto" ("scarlet twice-dyed"), adding a detail of double-dyeing not explicit in the Hebrew construct phrase itself. The LXX (LXXSWETE) list of materials is truncated in the provided text (ending at "διανενησμ"), and it renders chesheb as "ὕφασμα τῶν ἐπωμίδων" ("the woven work of the shoulder-pieces"), a plural construction differing from the Hebrew singular construct chain chesheb 'aphuddato.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.