Exodus 40:18

Summary

The verse narrates Moses assembling the tabernacle structure itself: he sets up the framework, inserts its bases, positions its frames, fits its crossbars, and raises its pillars. All five actions share Moses as the single subject, forming a rapid sequence of construction steps.

Key words

• va-yYakem ("he set up", H6965H) — hiphil (causative) narrative form, used twice (word 2 and word 23), creating an inclusio around the whole verse: first for the mishkan itself, then for the ammudim ("pillars").
• va-yYiten ("he put/gave", H5414H) — qal narrative form, used twice (words 8 and 18), for the bases and the bars, distinct from the causative heqim.
• adanav ("its bases", H0134) — masculine plural noun in construct with a pronominal suffix, "bases of-it/-his."
• qerashav ("its frames", H7175) — masculine plural construct + suffix, the vertical wooden frames of the structure.
• ammudav ("its pillars", H5982G) — masculine plural construct + suffix, closing the verse with the second use of heqim.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built entirely from wayyiqtol (narrative) verb forms, each introduced by the vav va (H9001), producing a chain of sequential completed actions: "and he set up... and he put... and he set... and he put... and he set up." Moses (Mosheh, H4872) is stated as subject only once, at the beginning, and remains the implied subject for all five verbs that follow — a common feature of Biblical Hebrew narrative syntax where a single subject governs an unbroken verbal chain.

Each object — mishkan ("tabernacle", H4908), adanim ("bases"), qerashim ("frames"), berichim ("bars"), ammudim ("pillars") — is marked by the untranslatable direct object marker 'et (H0853), which signals grammatically that these nouns are the objects being acted upon, not additional subjects. The pronominal suffixes attached to adanav, qerashav, berichav, and ammudav (grammatically "his," referring back to the mishkan) are rendered "its" in translation, since the parts belong to the tabernacle structure rather than to Moses. The repetition of heqim ("he set up") at both the start and end of the verse frames the whole assembly process, while the two occurrences of yiten ("he put") mark the insertion of smaller components (bases, bars) between the larger framing actions.

Differences between versions

The LXX and Vulgate texts supplied for this entry describe placing the testimonies and poles in relation to the ark, content that does not match the Hebrew of this verse, which concerns the erection of the mishkan framework, bases, frames, bars, and pillars. This reflects a difference in verse alignment between the traditions rather than a translation choice for the same Hebrew wording. The Spanish (RV1909, SBLIBRE) and English (BSB) renderings follow the Hebrew sequence of five actions closely, differing mainly in whether heqim is rendered "hizo levantar / levantó / set up" for both the tabernacle and the pillars, or varied stylistically ("erected... raised").