Exodus 38:12

Summary

Exodus 38:12 describes the west side of the courtyard enclosure: curtains fifty cubits wide, supported by ten pillars set in ten bases, with the pillars' hooks and bands made of silver.

Key words

• ke.la.'Im ("curtains", H7050B) — masculine plural noun, the hanging screens forming the courtyard boundary.
• 'a.mu.dei.Hem ("pillars of them", H5982G + H9028) — construct plural noun with 3rd person masculine plural suffix, indicating the pillars belonging to this section of curtains.
• 'ad.nei.Hem ("bases of them", H0134 + H9028) — construct plural noun with possessive suffix, referring to the sockets holding the pillars upright.
• va.Vei ("hooks of", H2053) — construct plural noun, part of the pillar fittings.
• Ka.sef ("silver", H3701G) — masculine singular noun functioning as a predicate describing the material of the hooks and bands.

What the text says

The verse opens with ve.li.f'at-Yam ("and for the side of the west", H9002+H9005+H6285+H3220H), a construct phrase marking the spatial orientation being described — the western boundary of the enclosure. The measurement chamiShim ba'Amah ("fifty by the cubit", H2572+H9003+H0520A) specifies the width of the curtains in that section.

The verse then lists architectural components using construct chains with pronominal suffixes: 'amudeiHem 'asaRah ("their pillars, ten", H5982G+H9028+H6235) and 'adneiHem 'asaRah ("their bases, ten", H0134+H9028+H6235). Each construct noun ('amudei, 'adnei) is followed by the possessive suffix Hem ("their"), linking the pillars and bases back to the curtains just mentioned. The numeral 'asaRah ("ten", H6235) appears twice, matching pillars to bases in a one-to-one correspondence.

The final clause names the fittings: vaVei ha'amuDim ("hooks of the pillars", H2053+H9009+H5982G) and chashuqeiHem ("their bands", H2838+H9028), both governed by the single predicate Kasef ("silver", H3701G) at the very end of the verse — the material applies to both the hooks and the bands.

Differences between versions

The provided LXX (Swete) text for this verse does not correspond to the Hebrew content at all: it describes vessels of a table (bowls, censers, cups, libation vessels) made of gold, rather than the west-side curtains, pillars, bases, and silver fittings found in the Hebrew. This indicates the LXX arrangement of Exodus 38 follows a different sequence of material at this point than the Masoretic Text reflected in the word-by-word data. The Vulgate (Clementine), by contrast, follows content matching the Hebrew — curtains of fifty cubits, ten bronze-based columns, and silver-covered column heads and carved work — though it renders the bases as "æneæ" ("bronze") rather than specifying silver, differing from the Hebrew's Kasef ("silver", H3701G) applied to the hooks and bands.