Exodus 36:5

Summary

The Israelite artisans report to Moses that the people have brought more materials than what is needed to carry out the work that Yehovah commanded. The sentence describes a surplus condition using a causative participle paired with an infinitive construction expressing quantity.

Key words

• marbim ("multiplying/are exceeding", H7235A) — hiphil participle, causative aspect: literally "causing much," expressing ongoing excess rather than a completed act.
• medei ("sufficiency of", H1767) — construct noun forming the idiom "more than the sufficiency of," i.e., beyond what suffices.
• ha'avodah ("the service", H5656H) — feminine singular noun referring to the labor/service required.
• lammelakhah ("for the work", H4399) — feminine singular noun with prefixed preposition, marking the purpose of the service.
• tzivah ("he has commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, intensive stem, completed action: Yehovah's command is presented as already given and finished.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative verb vayyomeru ("and they said," H0559), plural, indicating multiple speakers reporting to Moses. The infinitive lemor ("saying," H0559) introduces the direct speech. The core statement uses the hiphil participle marbim ("multiplying," H7235A) with the article-marked subject ha'am ("the people," H5971A): the people are in an ongoing state of bringing too much. The purpose infinitive lehavi ("to bring," H0935P) is followed by the comparative construction midei ha'avodah — literally "more than the sufficiency of the service" — expressing surplus relative to a required quantity, not simply "much."

The phrase lammelakhah ("for the work") specifies that this service/effort is directed toward "the work," distinct from ha'avodah ("the service") itself — the Hebrew text distinguishes these two nouns, service and work, in a way that a single translation term may collapse. The relative clause asher-tzivah Yehovah la'asot otah ("which Yehovah commanded to do it," H0834A/H6680/H6213A) closes the sentence, with the object suffix -ah ("it," H9034) referring back to hamelakhah, confirming grammatically that the command concerns the work rather than the service.

Differences between versions

The LXX reads eipen ("he said," singular) where the Hebrew has vayyomeru ("they said," plural); the Vulgate's dixerunt matches the Hebrew plural. The LXX further condenses the sentence with plēthos pherei ho laos ("the people bring/carry a multitude"), omitting the distinct Hebrew terms avodah ("service") and melakhah ("work") and instead using a general kata ta erga ("according to the works"). The Vulgate's plus offert populus quam necessarium est ("the people offer more than is necessary") conveys the surplus sense of midei but likewise does not preserve the Hebrew's two-term distinction between service and work.