Exodus 26:16

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Ten cubits shall be the length of a board, and one and a half cubits the breadth of each board.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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הַקָּ֑רֶשׁ

qeresh

H7175

“the · board”

Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 51× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 26:15

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from an unused root meaning to split off

TWOT: 2079a

board, boards, plank - board - boards

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 →

10: words
7: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הַקָּ֑רֶשׁ board H7175 occurs in 34 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

8 nouns
2 adjectives

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

אַמּ֖וֹת cubit H520 ×3
הַקָּ֑רֶשׁ board H7175 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 20 words from the Hebrew and 20 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

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 10 Hebrew tokens and 18 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.

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 26:16 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

עֶ֥שֶׂר אַמּ֖וֹת אֹ֣רֶךְ הַקָּ֑רֶשׁ וְאַמָּה֙ וַחֲצִ֣י הָֽאַמָּ֔ה רֹ֖חַב הַקֶּ֥רֶשׁ הָאֶחָֽד

Ten cubits shall be the length of a board, and one and a half cubits the breadth of each board.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Exodus 26:16 Septuagint · lemma form

δέκα πῆχυς ποιέω ὁ στῦλος ὁ εἷς καί πῆχυς εἷς καί ἥμισυς ὁ πλάτος ὁ στῦλος ὁ εἷς

Of ten cubits shall you make one post, and the breadth of one post of a cubit and a half.

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)

עֲשַׂר אַמִין אֻרְכָּא דְדַפָּא וְאַמְתָא וּפַלְגוּת אַמְתָא פּוּתְיָא דְדַפָּא חָד:

(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)

עֲשַר אַמִּין אוּרְכָּא דְלוּחָא וְאַמְתָא וּפַלְגָא דְאַמְתָא פּוּתְיָא דְלוּחָא חָד

Ten cubits the length of the board, and a cubit and a half the breadth of one board.

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 26:16 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 →

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 16. Ten cubits shall be the length of a board] Each of these boards or planks was about five yards and two feet and a half long, and thirty-two inches broad; and as they are said to be standing up, this was the HEIGHT of the tabernacle. The length being thirty cubits, twenty boards, one cubit and a half broad each, make about seventeen yards and a half, and the BREADTH was about five yards.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

John Gill's Exposition

Two tenons shall there be on one board,.... Every board was to be so cut and shaped at the lower end of it, as to have, as it were, "two hands" (r), as in the original, to enter into, lay hold on, and fasten in mortises:

set in order one against another; at a proper distance from each other, as the rounds of a ladder:

thus shalt thou make for all the boards of the tabernacle; everyone was to have two tenons.

(r) "duae manus", Montanus.

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

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

16. Ten cubits… a cubit and a half — About fifteen feet long and a little over two feet wide. The thickness is not given. The acacia trees now found in the Sinaitic desert are said to be not of sufficient size to make boards of this measure. If this be true, it may be observed (1.) that nothing requires us to suppose that every board was made out of one piece of timber. Skilful workmanship could as easily make such boards out of many pieces as it could make the golden candlestick out of many small pieces of gold. (2.) It is probable that the ancient growths of those regions were far greater than those which are now seen.

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

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

עשר אמות ארך הקדש TEN CUBITS SHALL BE THE LENGTH OF A BOARD — This tells us that the height of the Tabernacle was ten cubits (since the boards were standing vertically).

ואמה וחצי האמה רחב AND A CUBIT AND A HALF SHALL BE THE BREADTH — This teaches us that the length of the Tabernacle corresponding to the twenty boards which were on the north and on the south was 30 cubits from east to west.

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 10 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is qeresh (“board”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word qeresh carries the sense “board.” How does it shape the verse?
How does Exodus 26:15, which shares the word «board», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “cubit” (3× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
Compare how Adam Clarke's Commentary and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 10 Hebrew ↔ 18 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 6 words in this verse.
“cubit” occurs 3× in this single verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 10 words in this verse.