Exodus 25:38

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Its snuffers and its snuff dishes shall be of pure gold.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

2 first appearances in the Hebrew Bible

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וּמַלְקָחֶ֥יהָ

melqâch

H4457

“and · snuffers · her”

Conjunction + Noun, Common, Masculine, Dual, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular

Appears 6× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H3947

TWOT: 1124d

snuffers, tongs - tongs (for altar use) - snuffers (for lamps in temple or tabernacle)

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 →

4: words
4: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is וּמַלְקָחֶ֥יהָ snuffers H4457 — appearing just 6 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

These words make their first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

וּמַלְקָחֶ֥יהָ snuffers H4457
וּמַחְתֹּתֶ֖יהָ censer H4289

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וּמַלְקָחֶ֥יהָ snuffers H4457 occurs in 6 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 nouns
1 adjective

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 11 words from the Hebrew and 12 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.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Exodus 25:38 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Exodus 37:23 He made its seven lamps, and its snuffers, and its snuff dishes, of pure gold.
Numbers 4:9 They shall take a blue cloth, and cover the lampstand of the light, and its lamps, and its snuffers, and its snuff dishes, and all its oil vessels, with which they minister to it.
1 Kings 7:50 and the cups, and the snuffers, and the basins, and the spoons, and the fire pans, of pure gold; and the hinges, both for the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and for the doors of the house, [to wit], of the temple, of gold.
2 Kings 12:13 But there were not made for the house of Yahweh cups of silver, snuffers, basins, trumpets, any vessels of gold, or vessels of silver, of the money that was brought into the house of Yahweh;
2 Kings 25:14 The pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass with which they ministered, took they away.
2 Chronicles 4:21 and the flowers, and the lamps, and the tongs, of gold, and that perfect gold;
Isaiah 6:6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar.
Jeremiah 52:18 The pots also, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the basins, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass with which they ministered, took they away.

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 25:38 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וּמַלְקָחֶ֥יהָ וּמַחְתֹּתֶ֖יהָ זָהָ֥ב טָהֽוֹר

Its snuffers and its snuff dishes shall be of pure gold.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Exodus 25:38 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ὁ ἐπαρυστήρ αὐτός καί ὁ ὑπόθεμα αὐτός ἐκ χρυσίον καθαρός ποιέω

And you shall make its funnel and its snuff-dishes of pure 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)

וְצִבְיְתָהָא וּמַחְתְּיָתָהָא דִדְהַב דְכֵי:

(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)

וּמַלְקָטַיָיהָא וּמַחְתְּיָיתָא דִדְהַב דְּכֵי

And its snuffers and its shovels of pure 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 25:38 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 25:38 And the tongs thereof, and the snuffdishes thereof, [shall be of] pure gold.

Ver. 38. And the tongs.] All of gold; betokening the purity of doctrine and discipline in the Church.

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.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

tongs--snuffers.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(38) Tongs . . . snuffdishes.—“Tongs,” or pincers, were required for trimming the wicks of the lamps, and removing loose portions; “snuffdishes” for receiving the fragments thus removed.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

38. tongs] so Exo_37:23, Num_4:9, 1Ki_7:49 b (=2Ch_4:21 a), Isa_6:6†. In Isa_6:6 we should still say ‘tongs’ (the Heb. is lit. the two takers), but not in the other cases. Probably in all cases something of the nature of tweezers for drawing up the wick is meant (like the forcipes figured in Smith’s Dict. of Class. Antiq.3. i. 872): ‘snuffers,’ which in the case of a lamp we should naturally think of, represents a different Heb. word (1Ki_7:50 al.).

snuffdishes] so Exo_37:23, Num_4:9. The same word (lit. (fire-) catcher) is also used for what we should denote by the separate terms fire-pan (Exo_27:3 al.), and censer (Num_16:6 al.).

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.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Put out, with the oil, &c. Nothing was to be treated with disrespect that had been dedicated to God’s service. (Haydock) --- Alexander adorned the temple of Apollo with a grand candlestick, resembling a tree laden with fruit; (Pliny, [Natural History?] xxxiv. 8,) and Dionysius the younger made a present of one to the prytaneum of Athens, which had 365 lamps upon it. They stood on the ground, and burnt oil, being the more necessary, as the ancient temples had generally no windows. The Egyptians, according to Clement of Alexandria (strom. 1,) were the first who introduced them into their temples. (Calmet) --- Solomon set up ten candlesticks, five on the north, and five on the south of the holy place, 3 Kings vii. 49.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

38. Tongs… snuffdishes — The one for snuffing and trimming the lamps, the other for holding the burned snuffings when removed from the wicks. These latter were a small sort of fire-pans or ash-pans. Comp. Exo_27:3. The exact form of these is nowhere described.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

The tongs thereof. Tongs or pincers were required for trimming the wicks of the lamps. Compare 1Ki_7:49; 2Ch_4:21. Snuff-dishes were also needed for the reception of the fragments removed from the wicks by the tongs. "Snuffers," though the word is used in Exo_27:2-3, in the place of tongs, had not been indented, and were indeed unknown to the ancients.

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)

ומלקחיה — These were tongs made for taking the wicks out from the oil, to put them in position and to draw them into the mouths. Because people took things with them they were called מלקחים, (from לקח, “to take”). The word צבתהא by which Onkelos renders it is the same as the more familiar term צבת, “a pair of tongs”; tenailles in old French

ומחתתיה AND ITS SNUFF-DISHES — These were like small bowls into which the High Priest raked the ashes every morning when he cleansed out the lamps from the ashes of the wicks that had burned all night and had become extinguished. The word מחתה is fougère (feuchière) in old French, as in, (Isaiah 30:14) “to rake (לחתות) fire from the hearth.”

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 4 words (4 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is melqâch (“snuffers”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “snuffers” (melqâch) shape what this verse is saying?
2 words here appear for the first time in Scripture. What is being introduced at this debut?
Exodus 37:23 shares the word «snuffers» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Jamieson, Fausset & Brown read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

2 words make their first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
These translations choose different wording for 8 words in this verse.
4 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 4 words in this verse.