Exodus 35:12

Summary

This verse lists four items among the tabernacle furnishings: the ark, its carrying poles, the atonement cover, and the curtain of the screen. Each item is marked as a direct object using the particle 'et (H0853), joined in a simple additive list with the conjunction ve ("and", H9002).

Key words

• ha'aron ("the ark", H0727) — definite noun, masculine singular, marked as direct object by the preceding 'et.
• baddav ("its poles", H0905G) — masculine plural noun in construct form with a 3rd person masculine singular suffix ("his/its"), indicating the poles belong to the ark just mentioned.
• kapporet ("atonement cover", H3727) — feminine singular noun with definite article, a separate object in the list.
• parokhet ("curtain of...", H6532) — feminine singular noun in construct state, meaning it is grammatically bound to the following word rather than standing alone.
• hamasakh ("the screen", H4539) — masculine singular noun with definite article, the second element completing the construct phrase with parokhet.

What the text says

The verse is structured as a chain of four direct objects, each introduced by the untranslated marker 'et, which in Biblical Hebrew signals that the following noun is the object of a verb stated earlier in the larger sentence (not shown in this fragment). The list groups related items: ha'aron ("the ark") is immediately followed by baddav ("its poles"), where the pronominal suffix on baddav explicitly ties the poles back to the ark syntactically, rather than treating them as an unrelated item.

The final phrase, parokhet hamasakh, is a construct chain: parokhet ("curtain of") cannot stand alone grammatically and depends on hamasakh ("the screen") to complete its meaning, yielding "curtain of the screen." This construct relationship is a feature of Hebrew that shows possession or close association between two nouns, here indicating that the curtain is specifically identified with or belongs to "the screen" structure.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the construct phrase parokhet hamasakh not as a literal "curtain of the screen" but as an explanatory clause, "velum, quod ante illud oppanditur" ("the veil, which is spread before it"), adding interpretive detail about the curtain's function rather than translating the construct chain directly.

The LXX text provided ("the hangings of the court and its pillars") does not correspond to the same list of items found in the Hebrew of this verse; it names court hangings and pillars, terms absent from the Hebrew word list given here, reflecting a difference in the ordering or content of items at this point in the Greek text.