Numbers 3:31

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Their charge shall be the ark, the table, the lamp stand, the altars, the vessels of the sanctuary with which they minister, and the screen, and all its service.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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וְהַ֨מָּסָ֔ךְ

mâçâk

H4539

“and · the · covering”

Conjunction + Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 25× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 26:36

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H5526

TWOT: 1492a

covering, rag, screen - covering - screen (of the tabernacle)

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 →

13: words
12: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is וְהַ֨מָּסָ֔ךְ covering H4539 — appearing just 25 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וְהַ֨מָּסָ֔ךְ covering H4539 occurs in 25 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

1 verb
10 nouns
1 preposition
1 particle

Verb forms

יְשָׁרְת֖וּ Piel · Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 29 words from the Hebrew and 34 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

Topical passages linked to Numbers 3:31 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Exodus 25:10–40 "They shall make an ark of acacia wood. Its length shall be two and a half cubits, its breadth a cubit and a half, and a cubit and a half its height.
Exodus 26:31–33 "You shall make a veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, with cherubim. The work of the skillful workman shall it be made.
Exodus 27:1–8 "You shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long, and five cubits broad; the altar shall be foursquare: and its height shall be three cubits.
Exodus 30:1–10 "You shall make an altar to burn incense on. You shall make it of acacia wood.
Exodus 31:1–18 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Exodus 36:35–36 He made the veil of blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen: with cherubim. He made it the work of a skillful workman.
Exodus 37:1–38:7 Bezalel made the ark of acacia wood. Its length was two and a half cubits, and its breadth a cubit and a half, and a cubit and a half its height.
Exodus 39:33–42 They brought the tent to Moses, the tent, with all its furniture, its clasps, its boards, it bars, its pillars, its sockets,

Exodus 40:2–16 "On the first day of the first month you shall raise up the tent of the Tent of Meeting.
Exodus 40:30 He set the basin between the tent of meeting and the altar, and put water therein, with which to wash.
Numbers 4:4–16 This is the service of the sons of Kohath in the Tent of Meeting, the most holy things.

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 Numbers 3:31 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וּמִשְׁמַרְתָּ֗ם הָאָרֹ֤ן וְהַשֻּׁלְחָן֙ וְהַמְּנֹרָ֣ה וְהַֽמִּזְבְּחֹ֔ת וּכְלֵ֣י הַקֹּ֔דֶשׁ אֲשֶׁ֥ר יְשָׁרְת֖וּ בָּהֶ֑ם וְהַ֨מָּסָ֔ךְ וְכֹ֖ל עֲבֹדָתֽוֹ

Their charge shall be the ark, the table, the lamp stand, the altars, the vessels of the sanctuary with which they minister, and the screen, and all its service.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 3:31 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ὁ φυλακή αὐτός ὁ κιβωτός καί ὁ τράπεζα καί ὁ λυχνία καί ὁ θυσιαστήριον καί ὁ σκεῦος ὁ ἅγιος ὅσος λειτουργέω ἐν αὐτός καί ὁ κατακάλυμμα καί πᾶς ὁ ἔργον αὐτός

And their charge was the ark, and the table, and the candlestick, and the altars, and all the vessels of the sanctuary wherewith they do holy service, and the veil, and all their works.

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)

וּמַטַרְתְּהוֹן אֲרוֹנָא וּפְתוֹרָא וּמְנַרְתָּא וּמַדְבְּחַיָא וּמָנֵי קוּדְשָׁא דִי יְשַׁמְשׁוּן בְּהוֹן וּפְרָסָא וְכֹל פוּלְחָנֵהּ

(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)

וּמְטַרְתְּהוֹן אֲרוֹנָא וּפְתוֹרָא וּמְנַרְתָּא וּמַדְבְּחַיָא וּמָאנֵי קוּדְשָׁא דִישַׁמְשׁוּן בְּהוֹן וּפְרָסָא וְכָל פּוּלְחָנֵיהּ

and their charge, the ark, the table, the candelabrum, the altars, the vessels of the sanctuary wherewith they minister, and the veil, and that which pertaineth to its service.

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 Numbers 3:31 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 →

Joseph Benson's Commentary

Num 3:31. The hanging — Which covered the most holy place, for all other hangings belonged to the Gershonites. The service — That is, all the other furniture belonging to it.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

The chief things within the Sanctuary were committed to the Kohathites.

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

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

31. For the ark, table, and candlestick (better lampstand)’, see Exodus 25, and for the two altars, Exo_27:1-8; Exo_30:1-10.

the screen] The door-hangings of the tabernacle and of the court have been assigned to the Gershonites (Num_3:25 f.). This is therefore the veil which separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place. But it is nowhere else called simply ‘the screen.’ We should probably read (with the Syr.) the veil of the screen, i.e. the veil which acts as a screen, as in Num_4:5, Exo_40:3; Exo_40:21.

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 Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest,.... Who was of the first of these families, the Amramites:

shall be chief over the chief of the Levites; over the three chiefs of the three houses of the Levites, who were Eliasaph the son of Lael, the chief of the Gershonites; and Elizaphan the son of Uzziel, the chief of the Kohathites; and Zuriel the son of Abihail, the chief of the Merarites:

and have the oversight of them that keep the charge of the sanctuary; the Kohathites, who had the care of the things belonging to the holy and most holy places; and these were particularly under the inspection of Eleazar, because they were things the priests had a, special concern in; see Num 4:32.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

The hanging, which covered the most holy place, for all other hangings belonged to the Gershonites.

All the service thereof, i.e. all the other furniture belonging to it, of which see Num 4:7,9,14.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

The hanging - Which covered the most holy place, for all other hangings belonged to the Gershonites. The service - That is, all the other furniture belonging to it.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

והמסך AND THE SCREEN — i.e. the Partition Veil, for it, too, (cf. Rashi on v. 25) is called מסך in the phrase (Exodus 40:21): פרכת המסך.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Ibn Ezra

Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra

The Altars. Both of them.

And the sacred utensils with which they serve. This refers to the utensils of the Menorah, Table, and Altars. Many have erred in the explanation of the verse and the Curtain and all of the work involving these things — but the clear truth is that it refers to the Curtain of the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. All of the work — its ropes.

Ibn Ezra on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0); and “Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah - trans. by M. Friedlander, 1873” (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.

Numbers, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 13 words (12 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is mâçâk (“covering”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “covering” (mâçâk) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does Exodus 26:36, which shares the word «covering», read alongside this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«יְשָׁרְת֖וּ» is a Piel Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Joseph Benson's Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

These translations choose different wording for 18 words in this verse.
12 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 13 words in this verse.