Exodus 37:12

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He made a border of a handbreadth around it, and made a golden molding on its border around it.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

Septuagint runs shorter here — compare

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טֹ֖פַח

ṭôphach

H2948

“span”

Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

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

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H2946 (the same as H2947 )

TWOT: 818c

span, hand breadth

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
6: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is טֹ֖פַח span H2948 — appearing just 5 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

טֹ֖פַח span H2948 occurs in 5 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
7 nouns
1 preposition

Verb forms

וַיַּ֨עַשׂ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַיַּ֧עַשׂ Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

וַיַּ֨עַשׂ to do H6213 ×2
מִסְגֶּ֛רֶת border H4526 ×2
סָבִ֑יב round about H5439 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 19 words from the Hebrew and 8 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably shorter here. See the side-by-side →

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 16 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.

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably shorter than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 8 words vs World English Bible 19. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

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

Hebrew Exodus 37:12 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיַּ֨עַשׂ ל֥וֹ מִסְגֶּ֛רֶת טֹ֖פַח סָבִ֑יב וַיַּ֧עַשׂ זֵר זָהָ֛ב לְמִסְגַּרְתּ֖וֹ סָבִֽיב

He made a border of a handbreadth around it, and made a golden molding on its border around it.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Exodus 37:12 Septuagint · lemma form

ἱστίον πεντεκαίδεκα πῆχυς ὁ κατά νῶτον καί ὁ στῦλος αὐτός τρεῖς καί ὁ βάσις αὐτός τρεῖς

and their pillars three, and their sockets three.

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)

וַעֲבַד לֵהּ גְדַנְפָא רוּמֵהּ פּוּשְׁכָא סְחוֹר סְחוֹר וַעֲבַד דֵיר דִדְהַב לִגְדַנְפֵהּ סְחוֹר סְחוֹר:

(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)

וְעָבַד לֵיהּ גִּפּוּף רוּמֵיהּ פּוּשְׁכָא חֲזוֹר חֲזוֹר וְעָבַד דֵּיר דִּדְהַב לְגַפוּפֵיהּ חֲזוֹר חֲזוֹר

And he made a border for it, its height a span round about. And he made a crown of gold for the border round about.

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 37:12 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

Or, four fingers.

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

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 (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ṭôphach (“span”). The Greek Septuagint runs shorter here. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “span” (ṭôphach) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does Exodus 25:25, which shares the word «span», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to do” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
The Septuagint runs shorter here than the Hebrew. What might account for the difference?
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?
«וַיַּ֨עַשׂ» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?

Things to notice

This verse counts 10 Hebrew ↔ 16 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 12 words in this verse.
“to do” occurs 2× in this single verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 10 words in this verse.