Exodus 27:6

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

You shall make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with brass.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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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 →

9: words
8: 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
6 nouns
1 particle

Verb forms

וְעָשִׂ֤יתָ Qal · Sequential Perfect
וְצִפִּיתָ֥ Piel · Sequential Perfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

בַדִּים֙ apart H905 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 16 words from the Hebrew and 18 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 9 Hebrew tokens and 12 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 27:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Exodus 30:4 You shall make two golden rings for it under its molding; on its two ribs, on its two sides you shall make them; and they shall be for places for poles with which to bear it.
Exodus 35:13–15 the table with its poles and all its vessels, and the show bread;
Numbers 4:44 even those who were numbered of them by their families, were three thousand two hundred.

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 27:6 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְעָשִׂ֤יתָ בַדִּים֙ לַמִּזְבֵּ֔חַ בַּדֵּ֖י עֲצֵ֣י שִׁטִּ֑ים וְצִפִּיתָ֥ אֹתָ֖ם נְחֹֽשֶׁת

You shall make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with brass.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Exodus 27:6 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ποιέω ὁ θυσιαστήριον φορέω ἐκ ξύλον ἄσηπτος καί περιχαλκόω αὐτός χαλκοῦς

And you shall make for the altar staves of incorruptible wood, and you shall overlay them with 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)

וְתַעְבֵּד אֲרִיחַיָא לְמַדְבְּחָא אֲרִיחֵי דְאָעֵי שִׁטִין וְתַחֲפֵי יָתְהוֹן 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)

וְתַעֲבֵיד אֲרִיחִין דְּקֵיסֵי שִׁיטָא וְתַחְפֵּי יַתְהוֹן נְחָשָׁא

And thou shalt make staves of sittin woods, and overlay them with 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 27:6 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 →

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

staves . . . rings--Those rings were placed at the side through which the poles were inserted on occasions of removal.

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

(6) Staves for the altar.—See Note 2 on Exo_27:4.

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

6. bronze] contrast the gold of Exo_25:13; Exo_25:28.

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 shalt make staves for the altar, staves of shittim wood,.... Like those that were made for the ark, and for the same purpose:

and overlay them with brass; with plates of brass, whereas those for the ark were overlaid with gold.

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

Vers. 6, 7. Staves, or polos, were needed for the carriage of the altar from place to place, as for the ark (Exo_25:13) and the table of shew-bread (ib, ver. 28). They were to be inserted into the rings mentioned in ver. 4. As the altar was of bronze, so the rings were to be of bronze, and the staves overlaid with bronze. There is a gradual descent in the preciousness of the materials from the holy of holies to the holy place, and from that to the court.

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

Keil & Delitzsch

C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch

The poles were to be made of acacia-wood, and covered with brass, and to be placed in the rings that were fixed in the two sides for the purpose of carrying the altar. The additional instructions in Exo 27:8, "hollow with tables shalt thou make it, as it was showed thee in the mount" (cf. Exo 25:9), refer apparently, if we judge from Exo 20:24-25, simply to the wooden framework of the altar, which was covered with brass, and which was filled with earth, or gravel and stones, when the altar was about to be used, the whole being levelled so as to form a hearth. The shape thus given to the altar of burnt-offering corresponded to the other objects in the sanctuary. It could also be carried about with ease, and fixed in any place, and could be used for burning the sacrifices without the wooden walls being injured by the fire.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

Scofield Reference Notes

C. I. Scofield

shittim

i.e. acacia.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 9 words (8 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

The word shiṭṭâh carries the sense “acacia tree.” How does it shape the verse?
How does Exodus 25:5, which shares the word «acacia tree», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “apart” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
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?
«וְעָשִׂ֤יתָ» is a Qal Sequential Perfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Jamieson, Fausset & Brown and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 9 Hebrew ↔ 12 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 9 words in this verse.
“apart” occurs 2× in this single verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.