Exodus 38

1 Bezalel constructed the altar of burnt offering from acacia wood. It was square, five cubits long, five cubits wide, and three cubits high. 2 He made a horn at each of its four corners, so that the horns and altar were of one piece, and he overlaid the altar with bronze. 3 He made all the altar ’s utensils of bronze — its pots, shovels, sprinkling bowls, meat forks, and firepans. 4 He made a grate of bronze mesh for the altar under its ledge, halfway up from the bottom. 5 At the four corners of the bronze grate he cast four rings as holders for the poles. 6 And he made the poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with bronze. 7 Then he inserted the poles into the rings on the sides of the altar for carrying it. He made the altar with boards so that it was hollow. The Bronze Basin (Exodus 30:17–21) 8 Next he made the bronze basin and its stand from the mirrors of the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. The Courtyard (Exodus 27:9–19) 9 Then he constructed the courtyard. The south side of the courtyard was a hundred cubits long and had curtains of finely spun linen, 10 with twenty posts and twenty bronze bases, and with silver hooks and bands on the posts. 11 The north side was also a hundred cubits long, with twenty posts and twenty bronze bases. The hooks and bands of the posts were silver. 12 The west side was fifty cubits long and had curtains, with ten posts and ten bases. The hooks and bands of the posts were silver. 13 And the east side, toward the sunrise, was also fifty cubits long. 14 The curtains on one side of the entrance were fifteen cubits long, with three posts and three bases. 15 And the curtains on the other side were also fifteen cubits long, with three posts and three bases as well. 16 All the curtains around the courtyard were made of finely spun linen. 17 The bases for the posts were bronze, the hooks and bands were silver, and the plating for the tops of the posts was silver. So all the posts of the courtyard were banded with silver. 18 The curtain for the entrance to the courtyard was embroidered with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and finely spun linen. It was twenty cubits long and, like the curtains of the courtyard, five cubits high, 19 with four posts and four bronze bases. Their hooks were silver, as well as the bands and the plating of their tops. 20 All the tent pegs for the tabernacle and for the surrounding courtyard were bronze. An Inventory of Materials (Ezra 2:68–70; Nehemiah 7:70–73) 21 This is the inventory for the tabernacle, the tabernacle of the Testimony, as recorded at Moses ’ command by the Levites under the direction of Ithamar son of Aaron the priest. 22 Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made everything that the LORD had commanded Moses. 23 With him was Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver, designer, and embroiderer in blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine linen. 24 All the gold from the wave offering used for the work on the sanctuary totaled 29 talents and 730 shekels, according to the sanctuary shekel. 25 The silver from those numbered among the congregation totaled 100 talents and 1,775 shekels, according to the sanctuary shekel — 26 a beka per person, that is, half a shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, from everyone twenty years of age or older who had crossed over to be numbered, a total of 603,550 men. 27 The hundred talents of silver were used to cast the bases of the sanctuary and the bases of the veil —100 bases from the 100 talents, one talent per base. 28 With the 1,775 shekels of silver he made the hooks for the posts, overlaid their tops, and supplied bands for them. 29 The bronze from the wave offering totaled 70 talents and 2,400 shekels. 30 He used it to make the bases for the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, the bronze altar and its bronze grating, all the utensils for the altar, 31 the bases for the surrounding courtyard and its gate, and all the tent pegs for the tabernacle and its surrounding courtyard.

✦ What the text says

## Summary Exodus 38 describes Bezalel's construction of the bronze altar of burnt offering, its utensils, the bronze basin, and the courtyard with its curtains, posts, and bases. The chapter closes with a detailed accounting of the gold, silver, and bronze contributed by the congregation and used in the work, naming Bezalel and his assistant Oholiab as the craftsmen responsible. ## Key words - *nechoshet* ("bronze", H5178A) — this feminine singular noun recurs throughout the chapter (altar, grating, basin, bases, pegs), marking bronze as the dominant material of the outer tabernacle furnishings, in contrast to the silver and gold used for inner/finer elements. - *chatzer* ("courtyard", H2691A) — common gender singular noun naming the enclosed space whose measurements (vv.9-20) structure the second half of the descriptive material. - *techunah* ("wave-offering", H8573) — feminine singular noun used in vv.24 and 29 to identify the gold and bronze specifically as material that had been "waved" (a ritual gesture of presentation) before being allocated to construction. - *pekudei* ("expenses/accounted items", H6485B, from H6485A) — a passive participle construct form opening the summary in v.21, signaling a shift from narrative description to an administrative inventory of what was "recorded" or "counted." - *kikar* ("talent", H3603H) — feminine singular noun used repeatedly in the metal totals (vv.24-29), the largest unit of weight in the accounting section. ## What the text says The chapter is built almost entirely on the narrative verb *va-ya'as* ("and he made", H6213H), repeated at the start of nearly every construction verse (vv.1,2,3,4,6,8,9,22,30), which chains the actions of Bezalel as a continuous sequence rather than a list. Measurements are given through construct chains such as *chamesh amot orko* ("five cubits its length"), where the noun in construct state ("length of," "breadth of," "height of") takes a pronominal suffix referring back to the object being measured — a pattern repeated for the altar (v.1), the courtyard curtains (vv.9-18), and their posts and bases. From v.21 onward the grammar shifts: passive participles like *pekudei* (v.21) and *pequdim* (v.26) replace the active narrative verbs, marking the transition from construction account to financial record. The totals in vv.24-29 use cardinal numbers in construct chains (e.g., *tesha' ve-esrim kikar*, "nine and twenty talents") to express the exact weights of gold, silver, and bronze, each explicitly measured *be-sheqel ha-qodesh* ("by the shekel of the holy place", H6944G), a specific standard of weight named within the text itself. ## Differences between versions The Vulgate (v.7) explicitly states the altar was hollow and made of boards ("cavum ex tabulis, et intus vacuum"), matching the Hebrew *nevuv luchot* ("hollow of boards"). The Septuagint text supplied for this chapter diverges substantially in content and order from the Hebrew (e.g., LXX v.1 reads "he made the ark," and LXX v.6 reads "the two golden cherubim"), reflecting a different arrangement of material at this point in the Greek tradition compared to the Hebrew Masoretic sequence.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.