Exodus 37:7

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He made two cherubim of gold. He made them of beaten work them, at the two ends of the mercy seat;

World English Bible · Public Domain

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מִקְשָׁה֙

miqshâh

H4749

“hammered work”

Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 10× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 25:18

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H4748

TWOT: 2086b

hammered work, finely decorated cultic objects of gold or silver

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
8: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is מִקְשָׁה֙ hammered work H4749 — appearing just 10 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

מִקְשָׁה֙ hammered work H4749 occurs in 9 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
5 nouns
2 adjectives
1 particle

Verb forms

וַיַּ֛עַשׂ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
עָשָׂ֣ה Qal · Perfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

וַיַּ֛עַשׂ to do H6213 ×2
שְׁנֵ֥י two H8147 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 21 words from the Hebrew and 22 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 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.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Exodus 37:7 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

1 Kings 6:23–29 In the oracle he made two cherubim of olive-wood, each ten cubits high.
Psalms 80:1 Hear us, Shepherd of Israel, You who lead Joseph like a flock, You who sit above the cherubim, shine forth.
Psalms 104:4 He makes his messengers winds; His servants flames of fire.
Ezekiel 10:2 He spoke to the man clothed in linen, and said, Go in between the whirling [wheels], even under the cherub, and fill both your hands with coals of fire from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the city. He went in as I watched.

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 37:7 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיַּ֛עַשׂ שְׁנֵ֥י כְרֻבִ֖ים זָהָ֑ב מִקְשָׁה֙ עָשָׂ֣ה אֹתָ֔ם מִשְּׁנֵ֖י קְצ֥וֹת הַכַּפֹּֽרֶת

He made two cherubim of gold. He made them of beaten work them, at the two ends of the mercy seat;

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Exodus 37:7 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ποιέω ὁ αὐλή ὁ πρός λίψ ἱστίον ὁ αὐλή ἐκ βύσσος κλώθω ἑκατόν ἐπί ἑκατόν

And they made the court toward the south; the curtains of the court of fine linen twined, one hundred cubits every way,

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 תְּרֵין כְּרוּבִין דִדְהָב נְגִיד עֲבַד יָתְהוֹן מִתְּרֵין סִטְרֵי כַפֻּרְתָּא:

(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 תְּרֵין כְּרוּבִין דִּדְהַב דְּכֵי נְגִיד עָבַד יַתְהוֹן מִתְּרֵין סִטְרֵי כַּפּוּרְתָּא

And he made two kerubin of pure gold, beaten made be them, on the two sides of the mercy seat.

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 37:7 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

General Information:

Bezalel's work crew continues to build the tabernacle and furniture.

Bezalel made ... the center of the atonement lid

For Exo 37:7-9 see how you translated many of these words in Exodus 25:18 and Exodus 25:19-20.

They were made as one piece

This can be stated in active form. AT: "He made them as one piece" (See: Active or Passive)

The cherubim spread out their wings upward and overshadowed

Bezalel placed the statues of the cherubim as if they were real cherubim which were spreading their wings and overshadowing the atonement lid. AT: "They placed the winged creatures so that their wings touched each other and spread out over" (See: Personification)

The cherubim faced one another and looked toward

"The faces of the cherubim were towards each other, and they looked toward"

translationWords

cherub

gold

atonement lid

face

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) Beaten out of one piece.—Rather, of beaten work, as the word is translated in Exo_26:18.

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

7. beaten work] see on Exo_26:18.

10–16 (Exo_25:23-29). The table of the Presence-bread (see on Exo_25:30). Exo_25:30 (on the Presence-bread itself) is not repeated.

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.

The Pulpit Commentary

Beaten out of one piece. Rather, "of beaten work," as the same word is translated in the corresponding passage, Exo_25:18.

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

Scofield Reference Notes

C. I. Scofield

cherubims

See, 1Ki 6:23, (See Scofield "Eze 1:5").

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 10 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is miqshâh (“hammered work”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word miqshâh carries the sense “hammered work.” How does it shape the verse?
How does Exodus 25:18, which shares the word «hammered work», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to do” (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?
«וַיַּ֛עַשׂ» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how unfoldingWord translationNotes and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

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