Exodus 39:4

Summary

The verse describes the manufacture of shoulder-pieces for the ephod: they were made and joined together, attached at the two ends (or corners) of the garment. The Hebrew text emphasizes the joining action twice, using two different verb forms of the same root.

Key words

• ketefot ("shoulder-pieces", H3802) — feminine plural noun, the object that was made.
• 'asu ("they made", H6213H) — qal perfect, 3rd person plural, indicating a completed act performed by an unspecified plural subject (the craftsmen).
• chovrot ("joined", H2266) — qal participle, feminine plural, describing the shoulder-pieces as things "doing the joining" or being in a joined state, agreeing in gender and number with ketefot.
• ketzotayv ("its ends", H7098) — feminine plural noun in construct with a pronominal suffix ("his/its"), specifying the location of the joining.
• chubar ("it was joined", H2266) — pual perfect, 3rd person masculine singular, the same root as chovrot but in the intensive passive stem and singular number, describing the completed result of being joined.

What the text says

The clause structure is built around two forms of the same root, ח־ב־ר ("to join"). First, chovrot appears as a qal participle in the feminine plural, agreeing with ketefot ("shoulder-pieces"), describing them as parts that join or are in a joining relationship. Then, at the end of the verse, chubar appears as a pual perfect, masculine singular — a different stem (passive-intensive) and a different grammatical number. This shift from plural participle to singular passive perfect is a notable grammatical feature: the first form presents the shoulder-pieces as agents/participants in joining, while the second presents the joining itself as a completed, passive event, grammatically singular, possibly referring back to the ephod as a whole rather than to the plural shoulder-pieces.

The phrase 'al-shenei ketzotav ("on the two ends/corners of it") uses the construct form of ketzotayv, anchoring the joining action spatially to two specific points, with the pronominal suffix "its" referring to the ephod mentioned in the surrounding context (not present in this verse's word list).

Differences between versions

The Septuagint text provided for this reference (Swete) does not correspond in content to the Hebrew verse; it speaks of "a hundred talents of silver" for casting "a hundred capitals" of the tabernacle and veil, indicating a different verse alignment between the LXX and the Masoretic verse numbering at this point in Exodus 39. The Vulgate (duasque oras sibi invicem copulatas, "two edges joined to each other") renders only one joining action, without a clear counterpart to the second Hebrew verb chubar. Among the modern translations, RV1909 uses hombreras ("shoulder-pieces") while SBLIBRE uses tirantes ("straps"), reflecting different lexical choices for ketefot.