Exodus 39:35

Summary

This verse lists three items among the completed furnishings of the tabernacle: the aron ("ark") associated with the 'edut ("testimony"), its baddim ("poles"), and the kapporet ("atonement cover"). Each item is marked by the direct object marker, indicating this is a segment of a longer list of manufactured objects being presented or delivered.

Key words

• 'aron ("ark of", H0727) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning it is grammatically bound to the following word "testimony," producing the phrase "ark of the testimony."
• 'edut ("testimony", H5715) — feminine singular noun, the second term in the construct chain, specifying what kind of ark this is.
• baddim ("poles", H0905G) — masculine plural noun in construct form, carrying a third-person masculine singular pronominal suffix (-o, "its"), yielding "its poles," referring back to the ark.
• kapporet ("atonement cover", H3727) — feminine singular noun, the third item in the list, introduced by its own conjunction and direct object marker.
• 'et (H0853) — the direct object marker appears three times in this short verse, once before each listed item, showing that all three nouns function as direct objects of a verb located outside this verse (the listing verb governing the whole enumeration).

What the text says

The Hebrew presents a tight list structure using the direct object marker 'et three times, each time introducing one object: the ark-of-testimony unit, its poles, and the atonement cover. The construct chain 'aron ha'edut ("ark of the testimony") binds two nouns into a single semantic unit, with the definite article ha- (H9009) attached to 'edut rather than to 'aron, which is standard construct-chain grammar in Biblical Hebrew — the definiteness of the whole phrase is carried by the article on the second noun.

The word baddim ("poles") carries a pronominal suffix -o ("its"), grammatically tying the poles to the ark mentioned immediately before, without needing a separate possessive phrase. The three items are joined by the conjunction ve- ("and", H9002) before the second and third elements, a typical Hebrew listing pattern (item, "and" + item, "and" + item) rather than repeating "and" before every single element from the start.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text (TAHOT) lists the ark of the testimony, its poles, and the atonement cover. The BSB and RV1909/SBLIBRE translations correspond to this content ("ark," "poles," "mercy seat/propiciatorio"). However, the Vulgate text supplied here (VULCLEM) reads "mensam cum vasis suis et propositionis panibus" ("the table with its vessels and the bread of the presence"), which describes different objects (a table, vessels, and bread) not present in the Hebrew of this verse. This indicates the Vulgate text cited corresponds to different verse content than the Hebrew segment given for Exodus 39:35.