Numbers 8:4

Summary

The verse describes the construction of the lampstand (menorah, H4501): it was made of hammered gold from its base to its blossoms, following a pattern that Yehovah had shown Moses. The final clause states that Moses executed the work exactly as instructed.

Key words

• ma.'a.Seh ("work of", H4639G) — masculine singular construct noun, opening the sentence as a predicate nominative bound to "the lampstand"; it frames the whole verse as a description of manufacture rather than mere appearance.
• mik.Shah ("hammered work", H4749) — feminine singular noun appearing twice (once with zahav, "gold," H2091, and again alone before hi'), emphasizing the metalworking technique by repetition.
• ye.re.Kha ("its base", H3409) construct + suffix -h ("her/its", H9024) — marks the lower structural point of the lampstand, paired with pir.Cha ("its blossom", H6525) to form a merism "from base to blossom" covering the entire object.
• her.'Ah ("he had shown", H7200G) — hiphil (causative) perfect verb, indicating that Yehovah caused Moses to see something, i.e., a demonstrative or causative act of showing a model, not simply Moses seeing on his own.
• 'a.Sah ("he made", H6213H) — qal perfect verb, closing the verse; paired with the adverb ken ("so", H3651C), it creates a formula of exact correspondence between the shown pattern and the executed object.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the demonstrative Zeh ("this", H2088) followed immediately by the construct noun ma.'a.Seh ("work of", H4639G), producing a nominal clause: "this [is] the work of the lampstand." This construction front-loads the topic (the manufacturing process) before any verb appears. The material and technique are specified through two nouns in apposition, mik.Shah ("hammered work", H4749) and za.Hav ("gold", H2091), without a linking verb — a typical feature of Biblical Hebrew nominal clauses.

The phrase 'ad-ye.re.Kha... 'ad-pir.Cha ("to its base... to its blossom") uses the repeated preposition 'ad (H5704) to construct a merism, a rhetorical device naming two extremes (base and blossom) to indicate the totality of the object — the whole lampstand, not just its ends, was hammered work. This is reinforced by the pronoun hi' ("it/she", H1931) after the second mik.Shah, which grammatically restates and closes the description: "hammered work it [was]."

The final two clauses form a paired structure: ka.mar.'Eh 'a.Sher her.'Ah Yehovah ("according to the appearance that Yehovah had shown") and ken 'a.Sah ("so he made"). The hiphil verb her.'Ah (H7200G) indicates a causative act of showing, distinguishing the shown model from a simple visual perception. The adverb ken (H3651C) then creates a direct correspondence between what was shown and what was produced, without naming Moses again as subject of 'a.Sah, though he is understood from the preceding direct object marker construction.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders mar.'Eh ("appearance", H4758) with Greek eidos ("form/shape"), a close semantic match. However, where the Hebrew has pir.Cha ("blossom", H6525), the LXX gives krina ("lilies"), a more specific botanical term not directly present in the Hebrew word itself. The Vulgate's calamorum ("of reeds/branches") for the surrounding structure also introduces a term not explicit in the Hebrew construct chain of base and blossom, describing the branches rather than translating a specific Hebrew word present in this verse.