Exodus 36:16

Summary

The verse describes how the artisan joined the eleven curtains of goat hair (mentioned earlier in the chapter) into two separate sets: one group of five curtains and another group of six, each set attached independently of the other.

Key words

• yechaber ("he joined", H2266) — Piel stem, giving an intensive/factitive sense: not merely "to be joined" but actively "to join together" as a deliberate action; narrative form continues the sequence of construction steps.
• chamesh ("five of", H2568) — cardinal number in construct state, directly governing ha-yeriot ("the curtains"), forming the phrase "five of the curtains."
• yeriot ("curtains", H3407) — feminine plural noun, referring to the individual cloth sheets being assembled into larger sets.
• le-vad ("alone", H905H) — preposition le + noun vad, literally "to/for separateness." It appears twice, once for each group of curtains, marking that each set was joined as its own independent unit rather than all eleven being sewn into a single continuous sheet.
• shesh ("six of", H8337) — cardinal number in construct, paralleling chamesh to form the second group, "six of the curtains."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as two parallel clauses joined by the conjunction ve ("and"): the verb yechaber governs both objects, marked by the untranslated direct object particle 'et. The first object is chamesh ha-yeriot ("five of the curtains"), followed by le-vad; the second is shesh ha-yeriot ("six of the curtains"), also followed by le-vad. The repetition of le-vad after each numbered group is grammatically significant: it does not simply mean "separately" as a general adverb but emphasizes that each set of curtains constitutes its own distinct unit, joined internally but kept apart from the other set. This construction clarifies that the eleven curtains were not sewn into one uninterrupted sheet but into two sheets of five and six curtains respectively, matching the structural information given elsewhere in the chapter about the tent covering.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate ("quorum quinque junxit seorsum, et sex alia separatim") closely follows the Hebrew structure, rendering the two groups and the notion of separateness conveyed by le-vad. The LXX text provided (Swete edition) diverges substantially in content: it speaks of a "square, doubled" object measured "a span in length and a span in width," which does not correspond to the Hebrew wording about joining five and six curtains. This LXX passage as given describes different subject matter than the Hebrew verse.