Exodus 35:10

Summary

This verse addresses the community, calling upon those with skill to come forward and construct everything Yehovah has commanded. It functions as an introductory summons before the detailed list of tabernacle components that follows in subsequent verses.

Key words

• chakham-lev ("skillful of heart", H2450 + H3820A) — construct phrase literally "wise/skilled of heart," a Hebrew idiom denoting craftsmanship or technical skill, not emotional wisdom.
• yavo'u ("let them come", H0935G) — qal imperfect, third person masculine plural; expresses a directive or expected future action, often rendered as a jussive/imperative in translation.
• ya'asu ("they may make", H6213H) — qal imperfect with vav, syntactically linked to the preceding verb, indicating purpose or sequence: "let them come and [in order to] make."
• tzivvah ("he has commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, third masculine singular; the piel stem intensifies the basic action of "commanding," and the perfect aspect marks the command as a completed prior act.
• kol ("all/every", H3605) — appears twice (positions 2 and 11), first quantifying "every skilled person," then "all that" was commanded, framing both the subject and object of the verse comprehensively.

What the text says

The verse opens with ve-khol-chakham-lev bakhem ("and every skilled-of-heart among you"), a noun phrase functioning as the subject, followed by the preposition ba ("among", H9003) with the second-person plural suffix khem ("you", H9036), specifying the group addressed. The subject is grammatically singular in construction (khol chakham-lev, "every skilled-of-heart [one]") but refers collectively to multiple individuals, which is why the following verbs yavo'u and ya'asu appear in plural form.

The two verbs yavo'u ("let them come") and ya'asu ("they may make") are both qal imperfects, but the second carries a vav that ties it to the first, producing a purpose or sequential relationship: coming is directed toward making. The object of "making" is introduced by the direct object marker 'et (H0853, untranslated) followed by kol 'asher tzivvah Yehovah ("all that Yehovah has commanded"), where the relative particle 'asher introduces a clause whose verb tzivvah is in the piel perfect, marking the divine command as an already-completed act preceding the summons to build.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (Quisque vestrum sapiens est, "whoever among you is wise") shifts the Hebrew construct phrase chakham-lev into a relative clause structure, emphasizing individual qualification ("whoever is wise") rather than the Hebrew's collective noun phrase. The LXX excerpt provided does not correspond to this verse's wording but instead lists physical tabernacle components (tent, veils, bars, pillars), indicating the Greek text's verse division or content differs at this point from the Hebrew verse structure shown here.