Exodus 36:4

Summary

Exodus 36:4 states that all the skilled workers engaged in the work of the sanctuary came, each one leaving the specific task he had been doing. The verse uses repetition and a relative clause to underscore that every craftsman abandoned his individual assignment.

Key words

• chakhamim ("skillful [people]", H2450) — masculine plural adjective functioning as a substantive, "the skilled ones," referring collectively to the craftsmen.
• 'ish 'ish ("person, person", H0376G x2) — the noun is doubled to form a distributive expression, "each one" / "every single man," emphasizing individuality within the group.
• melekhet ("[the] work of", H4399) — feminine singular construct noun, appearing twice in the verse (once as melekhet ha-qodesh, "work of the holy place," and once as melakhto, "his work"), linking the collective task to each worker's personal portion.
• 'osim ("[were] doing", H6213A) — qal participle, masculine plural, used twice (lines 7 and 20) to frame the verse: the craftsmen who "were doing" the sanctuary work are the same ones who "were doing" their individual tasks.
• asher ("which", H0834A) — relative particle introducing the clause that specifies melakhto ("his work") as the work "which they were doing," tying the individual back to the collective.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative verb va-yavo'u ("and they came", H0935G), establishing the main action: the skilled workers arrive. The subject is expanded through a construct chain: kol ha-chakhamim ha-'osim 'et kol melekhet ha-qodesh — "all the skilled ones who were doing all the work of the holy place." This defines the group not just as skilled but as those actively engaged in sanctuary labor.

The second half of the verse shifts to distributive syntax. The doubled noun 'ish 'ish ("person, person") functions idiomatically as "each one," followed by mi-melakhto ("from his work"), a construct noun with a third-person pronominal suffix (-o, "his," H9023). This phrase pairs the collective identity of the craftsmen with their individual, separate tasks. The relative clause asher hemah 'osim ("which they were doing") closes the verse by restating the participle 'osim ("doing", H6213A) from earlier, creating a structural echo: the same verb frames both the general sanctuary work and each man's specific task.

Differences between versions

The LXX uses παρεγίνοντο, an imperfect verb ("were coming" / "kept coming"), where the Hebrew va-yavo'u is a simple narrative past ("came"), suggesting the LXX may read the action as repeated or ongoing rather than a single event. The Vulgate diverges more sharply: "Unde artifices venire compulsi" ("Whence the craftsmen were compelled to come") introduces the notion of compulsion (compulsi) absent from both the Hebrew and the LXX, and restructures the clause as a result stemming from prior context rather than a straightforward narrative statement. Modern translations such as BSB ("left their work") and SBLIBRE ("tuvieron que dejar su labor") follow this Vulgate-influenced sense of the workers stopping or being forced to leave their tasks, which is not explicit in the Hebrew wording itself.