וּבַמְּנֹרָ֖ה אַרְבָּעָ֣ה גְבִעִ֑ים מְשֻׁ֨קָּדִ֔ים כַּפְתֹּרֶ֖יהָ וּפְרָחֶֽיהָ
In the lampstand were four cups made like almond-blossoms, its buds and its flowers;
World English Bible · Public Domain
Exodus 37:20
Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex) Exodus 37:20 appears in the Hebrew Old Testament. The text above is from the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Each word links to its Strong’s number, a concise gloss, and parsing drawn from the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible morphology. Click any word for its full Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) entry.
English Translation
In the lampstand were four cups made like almond-blossoms, its buds and its flowers;
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Compare translations 3
The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
Each is an independent rendering of the whole verse — the interlinear is not word-aligned to these translations.
Highlighted words mark where these versions differ — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment.
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World English Bible Public Domain
In the lampstand were four cups made like almond-blossoms, its buds and its flowers;
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King James Version Public Domain
And in the candlestick were four bowls made like almonds, his knops, and his flowers:
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
And on the lampstand four cups shaped like almond blossoms its bulbs and its blossoms,
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Show all 18 translations
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
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World English Bible Public Domain
In the lampstand were four cups made like almond-blossoms, its buds and its flowers;
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Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
And on the lampstand were four cups shaped like almond blossoms with buds and petals.
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Majority Standard Bible Public Domain
And on the lampstand were four cups shaped like almond blossoms with buds and petals.
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King James Version Public Domain
And in the candlestick were four bowls made like almonds, his knops, and his flowers:
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American Standard Version (1901) Public Domain
And in the candlestick were four cups made like almond-blossoms, the knops thereof, and the flowers thereof;
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Revised Version (1885) Public Domain
And in the candlestick were four cups made like almond-blossoms, the knops thereof, and the flowers thereof:
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Geneva Bible (1599) Public Domain
And vpon the Candlesticke were foure bolles after the facion of almondes, the knoppes thereof and the floures thereof:
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Douay-Rheims (1899) Public Domain
And in the shaft itself were four cups after the manner of a nut, and bowls withal at every one, and lilies:
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Young's Literal Translation Public Domain
And in the candlestick `are' four calyxes, made like almonds, its knops, and its flowers,
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Literal Standard Version CC BY-SA 4.0
And in the lampstand [are] four calyxes, made like almonds, its knobs, and its flowers,
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Unlocked Literal Bible CC BY-SA 4.0
On the lampstand itself, the central shaft, there were four cups made like almond blossoms, with their leafy bases and the flowers.
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
And on the lampstand four cups shaped like almond blossoms its bulbs and its blossoms,
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Darby Bible Public Domain
And in the candlestick were four cups, shaped like almonds, its knobs, and its flowers;
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World Messianic Bible Public Domain
In the lamp stand were four cups made like almond blossoms, its buds and its flowers;
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Webster's Bible Public Domain
And in the candlestick were four bowls made like almonds, its knobs, and its flowers:
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Free Bible Version CC BY-SA 4.0
On the main shaft of the lampstand he made four cups shaped like almond flowers, complete with buds and petals.
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Bible in Basic English Public Domain
And on its pillar, four cups like almond flowers, every one with its bud and its flower;
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JPS Tanakh (1917) Public Domain
And in the candlestick were four cups made like almond-blossoms, the knops thereof, and the flowers thereof;
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
Word by word
More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →
Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →
מְשֻׁ֨קָּדִ֔ים
shâqad
H8246
“almond-shaped”
Verb, Pual, Participle Passive, Masculine, Plural, Absolute
- Appears 6× in the Hebrew Bible
- First appears at Exodus 25:33
- Part of Speech
- Verb
- Stem
- Pual
- Form
- Participle Passive
- Gender
- Masculine
- Number
- Plural
- State
- Absolute
Full BDB Definition
(Pual) cups shaped like almond blossoms (participle)
- וּבַמְּנֹרָ֖ה mᵉnôwrâh H4501 “and · in/at the · lampstand” Conjunction + Preposition, Determined + Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute
- אַרְבָּעָ֣ה ʼarbaʻ H702 “four” Adjective, Cardinal number, Masculine, Singular, Absolute
- גְבִעִ֑ים gᵉbîyaʻ H1375 “cups” Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute
- מְשֻׁ֨קָּדִ֔ים shâqad H8246 “almond-shaped” Verb, Pual, Participle Passive, Masculine, Plural, Absolute
- כַּפְתֹּרֶ֖יהָ kaphtôr H3730 “capitals · her” Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular
- וּפְרָחֶֽיהָ perach H6525 “and · sprouts · her” Conjunction + Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular
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 →
- 6
- words
- 6
- distinct lemmas
- Pentateuch
- section
Notable vocabulary
The rarest word here is מְשֻׁ֨קָּדִ֔ים almond-shaped H8246 — appearing just 6 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.
Shared distinctive vocabulary
מְשֻׁ֨קָּדִ֔ים almond-shaped H8246 occurs in 4 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
- 1 verb
- 4 nouns
- 1 adjective
Verb forms
- מְשֻׁ֨קָּדִ֔ים Pual · Participle Passive
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 14 words from the Hebrew and 17 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
4Topical passages linked to Exodus 37:20 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
- Exodus 25:33 three cups made like almond blossoms in one branch, a bud and a flower; and three cups made like almond blossoms in the other branch, a bud and a flower, so for the six branches going out of the lampstand;
- Numbers 17:8 It happened on the next day, that Moses went into the tent of the testimony; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and put forth buds, and produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds.
- Ecclesiastes 12:5 Yes, they shall be afraid of heights, And terrors will be in the way; And the almond tree shall blossom, And the grasshopper shall be a burden, And desire shall fail; Because man goes to his everlasting home, And the mourners go about the streets:
- Jeremiah 1:11 Moreover the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, Jeremiah, what see you? I said, I see a rod of an almond tree.
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.
καί βεσελεηλ ὁ ὁ ουριας ἐκ φυλή ιουδα ποιέω καθά συντάσσω κύριος ὁ μωυσῆς
And Beseleel the son of Urias of the tribe of Juda, did as the Lord commanded Moses.
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.
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Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)
וּבִמְנַרְתָּא אַרְבְּעָא כַלִידִין מְצַיְרִין חֵזוּרָהָא וְשׁוֹשַׁנָהָא:
(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.
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Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)
וּבִמְנַרְתָּא אַרְבָּעָא כַּלִידִין מְשַׁקְעִין בְּצִיּוּרֵיהֶן חִיזוּרָהָא וְשׁוֹשַׁנָהָא
And upon the candelabrum, four embossed cups with their figurations of apples and lilies.
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.
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 6 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is shâqad (“almond-shaped”). Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Discussion questions
- What does “almond-shaped” (shâqad) contribute to the verse as a whole?
- Exodus 25:33 shares the word «almond-shaped» 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?
- The verb «מְשֻׁ֨קָּדִ֔ים» is Pual Participle Passive. How does its form color the action?
Things to notice
- These translations choose different wording for 14 words in this verse.
- 6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.
Commentary
Notes on Exodus 37:20 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 →
unfoldingWord translationNotes
Door43 World Missions Community
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.