Exodus 27:18

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The length of the court shall be one hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty every where, and the height five cubits, of fine twined linen, and their sockets of brass.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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מָשְׁזָ֑ר

shâzar

H7806

“twisted”

Verb, Hophal, Participle Passive, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 21× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 26:1

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 2358

to twist, be twisted - (Hophal) - to be twisted - twisted (participle)

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 →

14: words
12: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is מָשְׁזָ֑ר to twist H7806 — appearing just 21 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

מָשְׁזָ֑ר to twist H7806 occurs in 21 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

1 verb
8 nouns
5 adjectives

Verb forms

מָשְׁזָ֑ר Hophal · Participle Passive

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

בָֽאַמָּ֜ה cubit H520 ×2
חֲמִשִּׁ֣ים fifty H2572 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 30 words from the Hebrew and 35 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 14 Hebrew tokens and 25 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 27:18 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

אֹ֣רֶךְ הֶֽחָצֵר֩ מֵאָ֨ה בָֽאַמָּ֜ה וְרֹ֣חַב חֲמִשִּׁ֣ים בַּחֲמִשִּׁ֗ים וְקֹמָ֛ה חָמֵ֥שׁ אַמּ֖וֹת שֵׁ֣שׁ מָשְׁזָ֑ר וְאַדְנֵיהֶ֖ם נְחֹֽשֶׁת

The length of the court shall be one hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty every where, and the height five cubits, of fine twined linen, and their sockets of brass.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Exodus 27:18 Septuagint · lemma form

ὁ δέ μῆκος ὁ αὐλή ἑκατόν ἐπί ἑκατόν καί εὖρος πεντήκοντα ἐπί πεντήκοντα καί ὕψος πέντε πῆχυς ἐκ βύσσος κλώθω καί ὁ βάσις αὐτός χαλκοῦς

And the length of the court shall be one hundred cubits on each side, and the breadth fifty on each side, and the height five cubits of fine linen spun, and their sockets of brass.

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)

אֻרְכָּא דְדַרְתָּא מְאָהּ בְאַמִין וּפוּתְיָא חַמְשִׁין בְּחַמְשִׁין וְרוּמָא חֲמֵשׁ אַמִין דְבוּץ שְׁזִיר וְסַמְכֵיהוֹן נְחָשָׁא:

(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)

אוּרְכָּא דְדַרְתָּא מְאָה אַמִּין וּפוּתְיָא חַמְשִׁין לְמַעַרְבָא וְחַמְשִׁין לְמַדִינְחָא וְרוּמָא חֲמֵשׁ אַמִּין דְּבוּץ שְׁזִיר וְחוּמְרֵיהוֹן דִּנְחָשָׁא

The length of the court one hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty on the west and fifty on the east, and the height five cubits, of fine linen twined, and their foundations of brass.

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 27:18 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 →

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Hebrew, fifty in fifty.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) The length . . . an hundred cubits.—Comp. Exo_27:9, where this is given as the length of the hangings.

The breadth fifty.—Comp. Exo_27:12.

The height five cubits.—This had not been previously either stated or implied. It has been noted that, with one exception, all the measurements of the tabernacle and the court, as distinct from the furniture, are either five cubits or some multiple of five. The one exception is the length of the inner covering (Exo_26:2), which was determined by the pitch of the roof.

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

18. every where] a lapsus calami in the Heb. for cubits, which is read by Sam. The text implies an otherwise unknown Heb. idiom, and the Eth. usage (Di. Eth. Gr. § 159g) referred to by König (iii. § 316c) is not the same.

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

The length of the court shall be one hundred cubits,.... And as may be concluded from the length of the hangings on each side:

and the breadth fifty everywhere; at both ends, and was the breadth of the hangings there, and which all around made the court:

and the height five cubits; or two yards and a half, and somewhat more; it was but half the height of the tabernacle, and hence that might be seen above it every way; so that, according to Bishop Cumberland, it contained one rood, twenty one perches, and twenty seven square feet, and was half an Egyptian aroura, which is the square of one hundred Jewish or Egyptian cubits: "of fine twined linen"; of which the hangings were made, and here called the court, as they properly were, for they made it:

and their sockets of brass; the bases on which all the pillars stood, upon which the hangings of fine twined linen were, were of brass; which seems to be repeated, that the foundation of this court might be observed to be different from that of the tabernacle; the foundation of that, or the sockets, into which the boards of it were put, being of silver.

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

The length and the breadth of the court had been already implied in what had been said of the external screen-work, or "hangings" (vers. 9 and 12). What this verse adds is the height of the pillars, which was five cubits, or seven feet six inches.

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)

ארך החצר THE LENGTH OF THE ENCLOSURE — i. e. its north and south sides which run from east to west, SHALL BE A HUNDRED CUBITS.

ורחב חמשים בחמשים AND THE BREADTH FIFTY EVERYWHERE — The part of the enclosure in the east side was a square of fifty by fifty cubits, for the Tabernacle was thirty cubits long and 10 cubits wide. Its entrance was placed in the east at the end of the outer fifty cubits of the length of the enclosure; consequently it (the Tabernacle) was entirely within the inner (the western) fifty cubits and its length finished up at the end of another thirty cubits (thus using up eighty cubits in the middle of the length of the enclosure); it followed therefore that it had a space of twenty cubits behind, between the hangings of the enclosure in the west and the curtains of the back of the Tabernacle. The breadth of the Tabernacle was using up ten cubits in the middle of the breadth of the enclosure; thus it had a space of twenty cubits on the north and on the south between the hangings of the enclosure and the curtains of the Tabernacle and there was a similar space in the west, as shown above, whilst fifty by fifty was the court in front of it (cf. Eruvin 23b).

וקמה חמש אמות AND THE HEIGHT FIVE CUBITS — The height of the partitions of the enclosure was five cubits and this was formed by the breadth of the curtaining.

ואדניהם נחשת AND THEIR SOCKETS OF COPPER — This statement is intended to include the sockets of the screen — that you should not say: sockets of copper are prescribed only for the columns of the curtaining (v. 17), but the sockets of the screen which are not stated to be of copper (v. 16) may be of another material; this, it appears to me, is the reason why Scripture repeats these words after having used them in v. 17.

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 14 words (12 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is shâzar (“to twist”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word shâzar carries the sense “to twist.” How does it shape the verse?
Exodus 26:1 shares the word «to twist» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“cubit” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «מָשְׁזָ֑ר» is Hophal Participle Passive. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Geneva Bible (1599) and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 14 Hebrew ↔ 25 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 15 words in this verse.
“cubit” occurs 2× in this single verse.
12 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 14 words in this verse.