Exodus 25:13

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

You shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

שִׁטִּ֑ים

shiṭṭâh

H7848

“acacia trees”

Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute

Appears 28× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 25:5

Full BDB Definition

Origin: meaning the sticks of wood [from the same as H7850 ]

TWOT: 2371

acacia tree, acacia wood

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

7: words
7: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

שִׁטִּ֑ים acacia tree H7848 occurs in 28 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
4 nouns
1 particle

Verb forms

וְעָשִׂ֥יתָ Qal · Sequential Perfect
וְצִפִּיתָ֥ Piel · Sequential Perfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 12 words from the Hebrew and 14 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 7 Hebrew tokens and 9 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Exodus 25:13 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Exodus 25:28 You shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be carried with them.
Exodus 27:6 You shall make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with brass.
Exodus 30:5 You shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold.
Exodus 37:4 He made poles of acacia wood, and overlaid them with gold.
Exodus 40:20 He took and put the testimony into the ark, and set the poles on the ark, and put the mercy seat above on the ark.
Numbers 4:6 and shall put a covering of sealskin on it, and shall spread over it a cloth all of blue, and shall put in its poles.
Numbers 4:8 They shall spread on them a scarlet cloth, and cover the same with a covering of sealskin, and shall put in its poles.
Numbers 4:11 On the golden altar they shall spread a blue cloth, and cover it with a covering of sealskin, and shall put in its poles.

Numbers 4:14 They shall put on it all its vessels, with which they minister about it, the fire pans, the flesh hooks, the shovels, and the basins; all the vessels of the altar; and they shall spread on it a covering of sealskin, and put in its poles.
1 Chronicles 15:15 The children of the Levites bore the ark of God on their shoulders with the poles thereon, as Moses commanded according to the word of Yahweh.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Exodus 25:13 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְעָשִׂ֥יתָ בַדֵּ֖י עֲצֵ֣י שִׁטִּ֑ים וְצִפִּיתָ֥ אֹתָ֖ם זָהָֽב

You shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Exodus 25:13 Septuagint · lemma form

ποιέω δέ ἀναφορεύς ξύλον ἄσηπτος καί καταχρυσόω αὐτός χρυσίον

And you shall make staves of incorruptible wood, and shall gild them with gold.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְתַעְבֵּד אֲרִיחֵי דְאָעֵי שִׁטִּין וְתַחֲפֵי יָתְהוֹן דַהֲבָא:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְתַעֲבֵיד אֲרִיחֵי דְקֵיסֵי שִׁיטָא וְתַחֲפֵי יַתְהוֹן דַּהֲבָא

And thou shalt make staves of sitta wood, and cover them with gold;

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Exodus 25:13 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Exo 25:13 And thou shalt make staves [of] shittim wood, and overlay them with gold.

Ver. 13 {See Trapp on "Exo 25:12"}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

13–15. Poles of acacia wood, overlaid with gold, to be made for the transport of the ark. Cf. 1Ki_8:7 f. Similar poles are provided for carrying the table of Presence-bread, vv. 27 f., the altar of burnt-offering, Exo_26:6 f., and the altar of incense, Exo_30:4 f. The word (bad), except in these connexions, is rare. Egyptian shrines, and sacred ‘arks,’ were carried in procession similarly: see Wilk.-B. iii., Plate opp. p. 355, E; EB. i. 307; Erman, p. 276.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And thou shall make staves of shittim wood,.... Of the same, wood the ark was made of, see Exo 25:5 and overlay them with gold; cover them with plates of gold, so that they appeared to be all of gold, the wood being not to be seen.

and overlay them with gold; cover them with plates of gold, so that they appeared to be all of gold, the wood being not to be seen.

Exodus 25:14

exo 25:14

exo 25:14

exo 25:14And thou shall put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark,.... This shows for what use the rings were; namely, to put the staves into them and the use of the staves thus put was:

that the ark might be borne with them; which staves overlaid with gold, and put into golden rings, figured the ministers of Christ, enriched with the gifts and graces of his Spirit, and possessed of the truths of the Gospel, more precious than gold and silver; who bear the name of Christ, and carry his Gospel into the several parts of the world.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The Pulpit Commentary

Staves of shittim wood. Similar staves, or poles, are to be seen in the Egyptian sculptures, attached to arks, thrones, and litters, and resting on the shoulders of the men who carry such objects.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

בדי means STAVES.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Exodus, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 7 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is shiṭṭâh (“acacia tree”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “acacia tree” (shiṭṭâh) shape what this verse is saying?
How does Exodus 25:5, which shares the word «acacia tree», read alongside this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וְעָשִׂ֥יתָ» is a Qal Sequential Perfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 7 Hebrew ↔ 9 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 7 words in this verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 7 words in this verse.