Exodus 31:5

Summary

Exodus 31:5 describes craftsmanship skills related to stonework and woodwork, specifying the setting of stones and the carving of wood, and concluding with a general reference to all kinds of work.

Key words

• chaRoshet ("carving of", H2799) — feminine singular construct noun, appearing twice, each time governing a following material noun ("carving of stone," "carving of wood").
• 'Even ("stone", H0068G) — feminine singular noun, the material governed by the first chaRoshet.
• maLot ("to fill", H4390) — Piel infinitive, an intensive verbal form indicating the action of setting/filling stones (into settings).
• 'a.Sot ("to do/work", H6213A) — Qal infinitive, the basic form of "to do," here referring to the general execution of work.
• melakhah ("workmanship", H4399) — feminine singular noun, preceded by khol ("all", H3605) in construct, forming "all workmanship."

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel construct chains: u-va-chaRoshet 'Even le-maLot ("and in carving of stone, to fill") and u-va-chaRoshet 'etz la-'aSot ("and in carving of wood, to do"). Each chain pairs a construct noun (chaRoshet) with a material noun ('Even, 'etz), followed by a purpose infinitive (maLot, 'aSot) introduced by the preposition le/la. This construction expresses the craft (carving) applied to a material (stone or wood) directed toward an action (filling/setting, doing/working). The final clause, be-khol-melakhah ("in all workmanship"), uses the construct khol + melakhah to generalize beyond the two specific crafts just named, extending the scope to any kind of skilled work.

The repetition of chaRoshet in construct with two different materials creates a grammatical parallelism that ties stonework and woodwork together as two instances of a single skill category (chaRoshet, "carving/engraving"), while the shift from Piel (maLot) to Qal ('aSot) infinitives marks a shift from a specific technical action (filling/setting stones) to a more general verb (doing/working) as the clause moves toward the summarizing phrase.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew infinitives as nouns (τὰ λιθουργικά, "stoneworking things"; τὰ ἔργα τὰ τεκτονικά, "carpentry works"), losing the infinitive-of-purpose structure present in the Hebrew le-maLot and la-'aSot. The Vulgate (VULCLEM) reduces the verse to a list of materials — marmore, et gemmis, et diversitate lignorum ("in marble, and gems, and variety of woods") — omitting the verbal infinitives maLot and 'aSot entirely. The BSB’s phrase "master of every craft" is an interpretive expansion not present in the Hebrew, which simply states be-khol-melakhah ("in all workmanship") without a noun equivalent to "master."