Exodus 38:22

Summary

The verse identifies Bezalel by his genealogy (son of Uri, grandson of Hur, from the tribe of Judah) and states that he made everything that Yehovah had commanded Moses. The sentence structure places the subject and genealogical information first, followed by the verb of action.

Key words

• ve.tzal.'El ("Bezalel", H1212G) — proper name, placed at the head of the sentence before the verb, creating emphasis on the subject.
• ben- ("son of", H1121A) — masculine singular construct noun, used twice to build a three-generation genealogical chain (Bezalel–Uri–Hur).
• 'a.Sah ("he made", H6213H) — qal perfect, third person masculine singular; denotes a completed action attributed to Bezalel.
• tzi.Vah ("he had commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, third person masculine singular; the piel stem intensifies the verbal action of commanding.
• 'et (H0853) — untranslated direct object marker, appearing twice (before kol and before Mosheh), marking the grammatical objects of asah and tzivah respectively.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the conjunction u. ("and", H9002) attached to the subject ve.tzal.'El, followed by his full genealogy through the construct chain ben-'u.Ri ven-chur ("son of Uri, son of Hur") and his tribal affiliation le.ma.Teh ye.hu.Dah ("of the tribe of Judah"). This entire subject phrase precedes the main verb asah ("he made"), a word order that in Biblical Hebrew often signals topicalization — the subject is fronted for emphasis before the predicate.

The object of asah is introduced by the marker 'et followed by kol-'asher-tzivah Yehovah 'et-Mosheh ("all that Yehovah had commanded Moses"). Here a subordinate relative clause, introduced by 'a.Sher ("that"), contains its own verb tzivah in the piel stem, expressing the intensive or causative nuance of commanding. The clause has its own subject-object structure: Yehovah commands, marked again by 'et before Mosheh, the recipient of the command. The double genealogical construct chain (ben...ben...) is a common device in Biblical Hebrew for establishing lineage across three generations in a single compact phrase.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text of this verse describes Bezalel's genealogy and his fulfillment of Yehovah's commands to Moses. The LXX text supplied here diverges substantially in content, describing instead the construction of a bronze altar from bronze firepans belonging to men who rebelled with a group called "Tore" — material not present in the Hebrew of this verse, suggesting a different section of text or an alternate versification tradition. The Vulgate begins with the relative pronoun quæ ("which"), linking the verse to a preceding subject, and specifies "Domino... jubente" ("the Lord commanding") using an ablative absolute construction, differing syntactically from the Hebrew relative clause structure "that Yehovah commanded Moses."