Exodus 37:9

Summary

Exodus 37:9 describes the two cherubim atop the kapporet ("atonement cover", H3727), stating that their wings spread upward and covered the cover, while their faces were turned toward each other and toward the kapporet itself.

Key words

• vayihyu ("and they were", H1961) — narrative vav-consecutive form of "to be"; opens the verse and introduces the descriptive scene.
• porse ("spreading out", H6566) — participle, construct state ("the one doing of"); presents the wing-spreading as an ongoing characteristic, not a single completed act.
• kenafayim ("wings", H3671) — dual noun, marking a natural pair (two wings), used twice in the verse (as absolute and in construct with suffix khanfeihem, "their wings").
• sokhekhim ("covering", H5526B) — participle, plural absolute; parallels porse and shares the same durative, descriptive force.
• hayu ("they were", H1961) — perfect form of the same root as vayihyu; closes the verse, marking completed state rather than the narrative-past opening.

What the text says

The sentence is built on two forms of the verb hayah ("to be", H1961): vayihyu at the start and hayu at the end. This creates an envelope (inclusio) around the central description. Between these two verbal frames, the text uses participles — porse ("spreading out", H6566) and sokhekhim ("covering", H5526B) — rather than finite verbs, which in Biblical Hebrew typically expresses an ongoing or characteristic state rather than a single narrated event. The cherubim are thus presented as continuously spreading their wings upward (le-ma'lah, H4605 with directional he) and continuously covering the kapporet (H3727) with them.

The orientation of the faces is expressed through the idiom ish el-achiv ("a man to his brother", H0376I + H0251I with pronominal suffix), a common Hebrew construction for reciprocity ("each toward the other"), followed by el ha-kapporet ("toward the atonement cover"). The final clause repeats pnei ha-kerubim ("faces of the cherubim", H6440H + H3742), mirroring ha-kerubim from the verse's opening and reinforcing the inclusio structure noted above.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint text supplied here (LXXSWETE) does not correspond in content to this Hebrew verse — it describes courtyard measurements rather than the cherubim on the kapporet, so no direct comparison of renderings is possible from the data given. The Vulgate ("extendentes alas, et tegentes propitiatorium, seque mutuo et illud respicientes") closely follows the Hebrew participial structure, rendering porse and sokhekhim as parallel present participles ("extendentes," "tegentes") and ish el-achiv as mutual regard ("seque mutuo... respicientes"), collapsing the Hebrew's separate "toward each other" and "toward the cover" clauses into one phrase.