Exodus 40:28

Summary

This verse reports a single action: Moses set the screen at the entrance of the tabernacle. It is a brief narrative notice, using the standard "and he did X" pattern found throughout the tabernacle-assembly account in Exodus 40.

Key words

• va-yaset structure: the verb sam ("he set up", H7760) appears with the narrative vav (H9001), marking this as the next sequential act in the assembly sequence — "and then he set up..."
• mimasakh ("screen of", H4539) — a masculine singular noun in the construct state, meaning it must be followed by another noun to complete its meaning ("screen of ___").
• ha-Petach ("the entrance", H6607) — the noun completing the construct chain, specifying which screen: the one belonging to the entrance.
• la-Mishkan ("of the tabernacle", H4908) — noun with prefixed preposition and article, indicating whose entrance is meant: the tabernacle's.
• 'et- (H0853) — the direct object marker, grammatically flagging masakh ha-Petach as the object receiving the action of sam, though it has no independent meaning in translation.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is compact, built on a chain of construct relationships: masakh ("screen of") governs ha-Petach ("the entrance"), and the whole phrase masakh ha-Petach is further specified by la-Mishkan ("of/for the tabernacle"). This creates a nested identification — not just any screen, but specifically "the screen of the entrance that belongs to the tabernacle." The verb sam (H7760), a simple qal form, denotes a basic completed action ("he placed/set"), consistent with the reportorial style of the passage, which lists each object Moses positions in sequence using the narrative vav.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text of this verse concerns only the placement of the entrance screen. The Septuagint text supplied (Swete) does not correspond to this content — it describes the cloud covering the tabernacle and the glory of the Lord filling it, which in the Hebrew numbering belongs to a different part of Exodus 40 (near verses 34–35). Likewise, the Vulgate text supplied describes Moses setting up the laver between the tabernacle and the altar and filling it with water, which corresponds to the Hebrew verse dealing with the laver (near verse 30), not to this verse about the entrance screen. The Spanish translations (RV1909, SBLIBRE) and the English BSB, by contrast, align closely with the Hebrew wording of this specific verse, rendering masakh ha-Petach la-Mishkan as "the curtain/screen of the entrance to the tabernacle."