It was square. They made the breastplate double. Its length was a span, and its breadth a span, being double.
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The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
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It was square. They made the breastplate double. Its length was a span, and its breadth a span, being double.
It was foursquare; they made the breastplate double: a span was the length thereof, and a span the breadth thereof, being doubled.
It was square, folded double. They made the breastpiece, its length: a span; and its width: a span folded double.
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
It was square. They made the breastplate double. Its length was a span, and its breadth a span, being double.
It was square when folded over double, a span long and a span wide.
It was square when folded over double, a span long and a span wide.
It was foursquare; they made the breastplate double: a span was the length thereof, and a span the breadth thereof, being doubled.
It was foursquare; they made the breastplate double: a span was the length thereof, and a span the breadth thereof, being double.
It was foursquare; they made the breastplate double: a span was the length thereof, and a span the breadth thereof, being double.
They made the brest plate double, and it was square, an hand breadth long, and an hand breadth broad: it was also double.
Foursquare, double, of the measure of a span.
it hath been square; double they have made the breastplate, a span its length, and a span its breadth, doubled.
it has been square; they have made the breastplate double, a span its length, and a span its breadth, doubled.
It was square. They folded the breastpiece double. It was one span long and one span wide.
It was square, folded double. They made the breastpiece, its length: a span; and its width: a span folded double.
It was square; double did they make the breastplate, a span the length thereof, and a span the breadth thereof, doubled.
It was square. They made the breastplate double. Its length was a span, and its width a span, being double.
It was foursquare; they made the breast-plate double: a span was the length of it, and a span the breadth of it, being doubled.
It was square when folded, measuring around nine inches in length and width.
It was square and folded in two, as long and as wide as the stretch of a man's hand;
It was four-square; they made the breastplate double; a span was the length thereof, and a span the breadth thereof, being double.
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).
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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 →
Notable vocabulary
The rarest word here is כָּפ֖וּל to double H3717 — appearing just 5 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.
Shared distinctive vocabulary
כָּפ֖וּל to double H3717 occurs in 4 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 20 words from the Hebrew and 31 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably longer 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 11 Hebrew tokens and 21 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.
The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.
Here the Septuagint runs noticeably longer than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 31 words vs World English Bible 20. 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.
רָב֧וּעַ הָיָ֛ה כָּפ֖וּל עָשׂ֣וּ אֶת הַחֹ֑שֶׁן זֶ֧רֶת אָרְכּ֛וֹ וְזֶ֥רֶת רָחְבּ֖וֹ כָּפֽוּל
It was square. They made the breastplate double. Its length was a span, and its breadth a span, being double.
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί ὁ παράθεμα ὁ χαλκοῦς ὁ θυσιαστήριον καί πᾶς ὁ σκεῦος ὁ θυσιαστήριον καί πᾶς ὁ ἐργαλεῖον ὁ σκηνή ὁ μαρτύριον
and the bases of the court round about, and the bases of the gate of the court, and the pins of the tabernacle, and the pins of the court round about;
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 →
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.
מְרַבַּע הֲוָה עֵיף עֲבָדוּ יָת חוּשְׁנָא זֶרְתָּא אֻרְכֵּהּ וְזֶרְתָּא פְתָיֵהּ עֵיף:
(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.
מְרַבַּע הֲוָה עֵיף עָבָדוּ יַת חוּשְׁנָא זַרְתָּא אוּרְכֵּיהּ וְזַרְתָּא פּוּתְיֵהּ עֵיף
Foursquare was it; doubled they made the breastplate, a span its length, and a span its breadth.
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.
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 11 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is kâphal (“to double”). The Greek Septuagint runs longer here. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on Exodus 39:9 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 →
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne
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
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.