Exodus 39:23

Summary

The verse describes the neck-opening of the high priest's robe (me'il, H4598): it was positioned in the middle of the garment and constructed like the opening of a coat of mail, with a reinforced border all around so that it would not tear.

Key words

• fi ("opening of", H6310J) — masculine singular construct, repeated three times in the verse, each time governing a different noun (hamme'il, tachra, and the suffixed form fiv "its opening"). This construct chain links the robe's neck-hole to its point of comparison and to the reinforcing edge.
• tachra ("a collar", H8473) — masculine singular absolute noun, used here as the object of comparison (ke-fi tachra, "like the opening of a tachra"). The term describes a garment or armor feature whose opening required similar reinforcement.
• safah ("an edge", H8193I) — feminine singular noun, functioning as the subject of the sentence: the "edge" or "border" is stated to exist around the opening.
• saviv ("all around", H5439G) — common gender singular noun used adverbially, specifying that the edge encircled the entire opening rather than only part of it.
• yikarea ("it was torn", H7167) — Niphal imperfect, third person masculine singular. The Niphal stem marks a passive/potential sense ("be torn"), and the imperfect aspect combined with the negation lo (H3808) expresses a durative or purposive negative: "it would not be torn" or "so that it does not tear."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of construct phrases governed by fi ("opening of"), first attaching to hamme'il ("the robe") and then, via the comparative preposition ke ("like"), to tachra ("a collar"). This construction states that the robe's neck-opening (fi hamme'il), located betocho ("in its middle"), resembled the opening of a tachra. The clause then shifts to safah ("an edge") as its grammatical subject, stating that this edge belonged (le) to the opening (fiv, "its opening," with a third-person suffix referring back to the robe) and ran saviv ("all around") it. The final clause, lo yikarea, uses the Niphal imperfect to express a negative purpose or ongoing state: the reinforced edge results in the opening not being torn.

Differences between versions

The LXX and Vulgate texts supplied for this reference do not correspond to the Hebrew content of this verse: the LXX passage describes Moses inspecting the finished work and blessing the people, while the Vulgate passage describes golden bells placed among pomegranates on the robe's hem. This reflects the well-known divergence in the arrangement of the tabernacle-construction material between the Masoretic Hebrew text and the Septuagint/Vulgate tradition in Exodus 35–40, where verse numbering and content sequence differ substantially.