Exodus 40:3

Summary

Exodus 40:3 instructs the placement of the aron ("ark", H0727) inside the tabernacle and its covering with the paroket ("curtain", H6532). The verse uses two sequential verbs describing two distinct actions: setting the ark in place and then screening it with the curtain.

Key words

• sam.Ta ("you will put", H7760H) — qal sequential perfect, second person masculine singular; continues a chain of instructions begun in prior verses, indicating a future action following logically from what precedes.
• 'aron ("ark of", H0727) — masculine singular noun in construct state in its first occurrence (line 5), meaning it is grammatically bound to the following word 'edut.
• 'edut ("testimony", H5715) — feminine singular noun; combined with the preceding construct noun and article ha ("the", H9009) to form the phrase "the ark of the testimony."
• sa.ko.Ta ("you will cover", H5526B) — qal sequential perfect, second person masculine singular; parallel in form to sam.Ta, marking the second step in the sequence.
• paroket ("curtain", H6532) — feminine singular noun, definite via the article ha; the object being placed to cover the ark.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built on two sequential perfect verbs joined by the narrative ve ("and", H9001): ve-sam.Ta ("and you will put") and ve-sa.ko.Ta ("and you will cover"). This verb form indicates a continuation of a command sequence, each action following the previous one in a set order. The direct object marker 'et (H0853) appears twice (before "ark of the testimony" and before "the curtain"), marking both nouns as objects of their respective verbs without adding independent meaning.

The word 'aron ("ark", H0727) appears twice in the verse — first in construct form as "ark of the testimony," then in absolute form simply as "the ark" (line 12), now marked with the definite article ha. This shift from construct to absolute form reflects that the ark has already been identified in the first clause, so the second reference uses a simpler form. The preposition 'al ("over", H5921A) specifies that the curtain is placed over the ark, distinct from the noun phrase construction of the first clause.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint (LXXSWETE) renders the verse with a single verb, σκεπάσεις ("you will cover"), applied directly to "the ark of the testimony... with the curtain," omitting a separate clause corresponding to the Hebrew ve-sam.Ta ("and you will put"). The Hebrew and the Vulgate both preserve two verbs: the Vulgate uses pones ("you will put") and dimittes ("you will let down"), the latter differing in nuance from the Hebrew sa.ko.Ta ("you will cover"), which describes covering rather than lowering.