Exodus 40

## Summary Exodus 40 recounts Yahweh's instructions to Moses for erecting the tabernacle on the first day of the first month (vv. 1-15), Moses' precise execution of every command (vv. 16-33), and the concluding scene in which the cloud covers the Tent of Meeting and the glory of Yahweh fills the tabernacle, so that Moses cannot enter (vv. 34-38). ## Key words - *tzivvah* ("he had commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, repeated seven times as the refrain *ka'asher tzivvah Yahweh 'et-Mosheh* ("just as Yahweh had commanded Moses"), marking each act of construction as compliance with a prior instruction. - *va-ya'as* ("and he did", H6213) — qal narrative form in v. 16, paired with *ken 'asah* ("so he did"), a doubled construction emphasizing exact correspondence between command and action. - *huqam* ("it was set up", H6965) — hophal (causative passive) perfect in v. 17, shifting the verb of "raising" from active (Moses raises) to passive (the tabernacle is raised), marking the completion of the structure as an event in itself. - *kavod* ("glory", H3519) construct with *Yahweh*, in *malé* ("it filled", H4390) — qal perfect describing the glory's occupation of the space, paired with *shakhan* ("it had settled down", H7931) describing the cloud's resting. - *masa'* ("journeyings", H4550) plural construct with suffix "their" in vv. 36 and 38 — used to frame the whole chapter's closing note about the cloud governing Israel's movements. ## What the text says The chapter's grammatical backbone is the sequential perfect (*ve-qatal*) chain running through verses 2-15: each instruction — *tashim* ("you will put"), *heveta* ("you will bring"), *natattah* ("you will put") — is grammatically linked to the previous one, producing a continuous, ordered list rather than isolated commands. This verbal chaining mirrors the physical sequence of assembly: table, then lampstand, then altar, then court. Verses 16-33 mirror this structure but shift the verbs from second-person instruction to third-person narrative (*vayyiqqach*, *vayyiten*, *vayyasem* — "and he took," "and he put," "and he set up"), each still governed by the object marker *'et* (H0853) preceding definite nouns. The repeated closing formula *ka'asher tzivvah Yahweh 'et-Mosheh* appears after nearly every unit of action, a grammatical marker of correspondence between spoken command (chapters 25-30, echoed in vv. 1-15) and completed deed. The formula's frequency — occurring more than once per several verses — is a structural feature of the Hebrew text itself, not merely stylistic repetition. The final unit (vv. 34-38) changes register: the verbs *yekhas* ("it covered", H3680) and *malé* ("it filled", H4390) describe the cloud and glory acting upon the tent, and the negated modal *lo' yakhol* ("he was not able", H3201) marks Moses' incapacity to enter — a grammatical negation of human agency in contrast to the extended series of human sequential perfects that dominated the chapter. ## Differences between versions The Hebrew text (MT) continues through verse 38, including the statements about the cloud and fire visible "by day" and "by night" throughout Israel's *masa'* ("journeyings", H4550). The Vulgate (VULCLEM) as supplied ends its parallel material earlier in the chapter's numbering and includes material (e.g., washing of hands and feet, priestly ordination details) distributed differently across verse divisions than the Hebrew and LXX, reflecting different verse-segmentation traditions rather than differences in wording per se. The LXX (Swete) text supplied for several verses (e.g., vv. 6, 9-15, 17-33) diverges substantially in content and order from the Hebrew MT for those same verse numbers, describing actions (anointing, priestly consecration, altar-related acts) in different sequence and wording than the Hebrew at the corresponding verse number — this reflects a different chapter/verse alignment between the LXX numbering and the MT numbering in this section, rather than a single point-for-point rendering.