Worthy.Bible » Parallel » Exodus » Chapter 38 » Verse 25-28

Exodus 38:25-28 King James Version (KJV)

25 And the silver of them that were numbered of the congregation was an hundred talents, and a thousand seven hundred and threescore and fifteen shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary:

26 A bekah for every man, that is, half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for every one that went to be numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty men.

27 And of the hundred talents of silver were cast the sockets of the sanctuary, and the sockets of the vail; an hundred sockets of the hundred talents, a talent for a socket.

28 And of the thousand seven hundred seventy and five shekels he made hooks for the pillars, and overlaid their chapiters, and filleted them.


Exodus 38:25-28 King James Version with Strong's Concordance (STRONG)

25 And the silver H3701 of them that were numbered H6485 of the congregation H5712 was an hundred H3967 talents, H3603 and a thousand H505 seven H7651 hundred H3967 and threescore and fifteen H7657 H2568 shekels, H8255 after the shekel H8255 of the sanctuary: H6944

26 A bekah H1235 for every man, H1538 that is, half H4276 a shekel, H8255 after the shekel H8255 of the sanctuary, H6944 for every one that went H5674 to be numbered, H6485 from twenty H6242 years H8141 old H1121 and upward, H4605 for six H8337 hundred H3967 thousand H505 and three H7969 thousand H505 and five H2568 hundred H3967 and fifty H2572 men.

27 And of the hundred H3967 talents H3603 of silver H3701 were cast H3332 the sockets H134 of the sanctuary, H6944 and the sockets H134 of the vail; H6532 an hundred H3967 sockets H134 of the hundred H3967 talents, H3603 a talent H3603 for a socket. H134

28 And of the thousand H505 seven H7651 hundred H3967 seventy H7657 and five H2568 shekels he made H6213 hooks H2053 for the pillars, H5982 and overlaid H6823 their chapiters, H7218 and filleted H2836 them.


Exodus 38:25-28 American Standard (ASV)

25 And the silver of them that were numbered of the congregation was a hundred talents, and a thousand seven hundred and threescore and fifteen shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary:

26 a beka a head, `that is', half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for every one that passed over to them that were numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty men.

27 And the hundred talents of silver were for casting the sockets of the sanctuary, and the sockets of the veil; a hundred sockets for the hundred talents, a talent for a socket.

28 And of the thousand seven hundred seventy and five `shekels' he made hooks for the pillars, and overlaid their capitals, and made fillets for them.


Exodus 38:25-28 Young's Literal Translation (YLT)

25 And the silver of those numbered of the company `is' a hundred talents, and a thousand and seven hundred and five and seventy shekels, by the shekel of the sanctuary;

26 a bekah for a poll (half a shekel, by the shekel of the sanctuary,) for every one who is passing over unto those numbered, from a son of twenty years and upwards, for six hundred thousand, and three thousand, and five hundred and fifty.

27 And a hundred talents of silver are to cast the sockets of the sanctuary, and the sockets of the vail; a hundred sockets for the hundred talents, a talent for a socket;

28 and the thousand and seven hundred and five and seventy he hath made pegs for the pillars, and overlaid their tops, and filleted them.


Exodus 38:25-28 Darby English Bible (DARBY)

25 And the silver of them that were numbered of the assembly was a hundred talents, and a thousand seven hundred and seventy-five shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary:

26 a bekah the head -- half a shekel, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, for every one that passed the numbering from twenty years old and upward, [of] the six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty.

27 And there were a hundred talents of silver for casting the bases of the sanctuary, and the bases of the veil; a hundred bases of a hundred talents, a talent for a base.

28 And of the thousand seven hundred and seventy-five [shekels] he made the hooks for the pillars, and overlaid their capitals, and fastened them [with rods].


Exodus 38:25-28 World English Bible (WEB)

25 The silver of those who were numbered of the congregation was one hundred talents, and one thousand seven hundred seventy-five shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary:

26 a beka a head, that is, half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for everyone who passed over to those who were numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred three thousand five hundred fifty men.

27 The one hundred talents of silver were for casting the sockets of the sanctuary, and the sockets of the veil; one hundred sockets for the one hundred talents, a talent for a socket.

28 Of the one thousand seven hundred seventy-five shekels he made hooks for the pillars, overlaid their capitals, and made fillets for them.


Exodus 38:25-28 Bible in Basic English (BBE)

25 And the silver given by those who were numbered of the people was a hundred talents, and a thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five shekels in weight, by the scale of the holy place.

26 A beka, that is, half a shekel by the holy scale, for everyone who was numbered; there were six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty men of twenty years old and over.

27 Of this silver, a hundred talents was used for making the bases of the pillars of the holy place and of the veil; a talent for every base.

28 And a thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five shekels of silver was used to make the hooks for the pillars, and for plating the tops of the pillars and for making their bands.

Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Exodus 38

Commentary on Exodus 38 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary


Verses 21-31

Estimate of the Amount of Metal Used. - Exodus 38:21. “ These are the numbered things of the dwelling, of the dwelling of the testimony, that were numbered at the command of Moses, through the service of the Levites, by the hand of Ithamar, the son of Aaron the priest .” פּקוּדים does not mean the numbering (equivalent to מפקד 2 Samuel 4:9, or פּקדּה 2 Chronicles 17:14; 2 Chronicles 26:11), as Knobel supposes, but here as elsewhere, even in Numbers 26:63-64, it signifies “the numbered;” the only difference being, that in most cases it refers to persons, here to things, and that the reckoning consisted not merely in the counting and entering of the different things, but in ascertaining their weight and estimating their worth. Lyra has given the following correct rendering of this heading: “ haec est summa numeri ponderis eorum, quae facta sunt in tabernaculo ex auro, argento et aere .” It was apparently superfluous to enumerate the different articles again, as this had been repeatedly done before. The weight of the different metals, therefore, is all that is given. The “dwelling” is still further described as “the dwelling of the testimony,” because the testimony, i.e., the decalogue written with the finger of God upon the tables of stone, was kept in the dwelling, and this testimony formed the base of the throne of Jehovah, and was the material pledge that Jehovah would cause His name, His manifested presence, to dwell there, and would thus show Himself to His people in grace and righteousness. “That which was numbered” is an explanatory apposition to the previous clause, “the numbering of the dwelling;” and the words הלויּם עבדת , which follow, are an accusative construed freely to indicate more particularly the mode of numbering ( Ewald , §204 a ), viz., “through the service,” or “by means of the service of the Levites,” not for their service. “By the hand of Ithamar:” who presided over the calculations which the Levites carried out under his superintendence.

Exodus 38:22-23

The allusion to the service of the Levites under Ithamar leads the historian to mention once more the architects of the whole building, and the different works connected with it (cf. Exodus 31:2.).

Exodus 38:24

“(As for) all the gold that was used ( העשׂוּי ) for the work in every kind of holy work, the gold of the wave-offering (the gold that was offered as a wave-offering, see at Exodus 35:22) was (amounted to) 29 talents and 730 shekels in holy shekel, ” that is to say, 87,370 shekels or 877,300 thalers (L.131,595), if we accept Thenius' estimate, that the gold shekel was worth 10 thalers (L.1, 10s.), which is probably very near the truth.

Exodus 38:25-28

Of the silver, all that is mentioned is the amount of atonement-money raised from those who were numbered (see at Exodus 30:12.) at the rate of half a shekel for every male, without including the freewill-offerings of silver (Exodus 35:24, cf. Exodus 25:3), whether it was that they were too insignificant, or that they were not used for the work, but were placed with the excess mentioned in Exodus 36:7. The result of the numbering gave 603,550 men, every one of whom paid half a shekel. This would yield 301,775 shekels, or 100 talents and 1775 shekels, which proves by the way that a talent contained 3000 shekels. A hundred talents of this were used for casting 96 sockets for the 48 boards, and 4 sockets for the 4 pillars of the inner court, - one talent therefore for each socket, - and the 1775 shekels for the hooks of the pillars that sustained the curtains, for silvering their capitals, and “for binding the pillars,” i.e., for making the silver connecting rods for the pillars of the court (Exodus 27:10-11; Exodus 38:10.).

Exodus 38:29-31

The copper of the wave-offering amounted to 70 talents and 2400 shekels; and of this the sockets of the pillars at the entrance of the tabernacle (Exodus 26:37), the altar of burnt-offering with its network and vessels, the supports of the pillars of the court, all the pegs of the dwelling and court, and, what is not expressly mentioned here, the laver with its support (Exodus 30:18), were made. בּ עשׂה to work in (with) copper, i.e., to make of copper.

If this quantity of the precious metals may possibly strike some readers as very large, and was in fact brought forward years ago as a reason for questioning the historical credibility of our account of the building of the tabernacle, it has been frequently urged, on the other hand, that it looks quite small, in comparison with the quantities of gold and silver that have been found accumulated in the East, in both ancient and modern times. According to the account before us, the requisite amount of silver was raised by the comparatively small payment of half a shekel, about fifteen pence, for every male Israelite of 20 years old and upwards. Now no tenable objection can be raised against the payment of such a tribute, since we have no reason whatever for supposing the Israelites to have been paupers, notwithstanding the oppression which they endured during the closing period of their stay in Egypt. They were settled in the most fertile part of Egypt; and coined silver was current in western Asia even in the time of the patriarchs (Genesis 23:16). But with reference to the quantities of gold and copper that were delivered, we need not point to the immense stores of gold and other metals that were kept in the capitals of the Asiatic kingdoms of antiquity,

(Note: Thus, to mention only one or two examples, the images in the temple of Belus, at Babylon, consisted of several thousand talents of gold, to say nothing of the golden tables, the bedsteads, and other articles of gold and silver ( Diod. Sic. 2, 9; Herod . 1, 181, 183). In the siege of Nineveh, Sardanapalus erected a funeral pile, upon which he collected all his wealth, including 150 golden bedsteads, 150 golden tables, a million talents of gold, and ten times as much silver and other valuables, to prevent their falling into the hands of the foe ( Ctesias in Athen . 12, 28, p. 529). According to a statement in Pliny's Hist. Nat. 33, 3, on the conquest of Asia by Cyrus, he carried off booty to the extent of 34,000 lbs. of gold, beside the golden vessels and 500,000 talents of silver, including the goblet of Semiramis, which alone weighed 15 talents. Alexander the Great found more than 40,000 talents of gold and silver and 9000 talents of coined gold in the royal treasury at Susa ( Diod. Sic. 17, 66), and a treasure of 120,000 talents of gold in the citadel of Persepolis ( Diod. Sic. 17, 71; Curtius , v. 6, 9). For further accounts of the enormous wealth of Asia in gold and silver, see Bähr, Symbolik i. pp. 258ff.)

but will merely call to mind the fact, that the kings of Egypt possessed many large gold mines on the frontiers of the country, and in the neighbouring lands of Arabia and Ethiopia, which were worked by criminals, prisoners of war, and others, under the harshest pressure, and the very earliest times copper mines were discovered on the Arabian peninsula, which were worked by a colony of labourers ( Lepsius , Letters from Egypt, p. 336). Moreover, the love of the ancient Egyptians for valuable and elegant ornaments, gold rings, necklaces, etc., is sufficiently known from the monuments (see Rosellini in Hengstenberg's Egypt, p. 137). Is it not likely, then, that the Israelites should have acquired a taste for jewellery of this kind, and should have possessed or discovered the means of procuring all kinds of gold and silver decorations, not to mention the gold and silver jewellery which they received from the Egyptians on their departure? The liking for such things even among nomad tribes is very well known. Thus, for example, after the defeat of the Midianites, the Israelites carried off so much gold, silver, copper, and other metals as spoil, that their princes alone were able to offer 16,750 shekels of gold as a heave-offering to Jehovah from the booty that had been obtained in this kind of jewellery (Numbers 31:50.). Diodorus Sic. (3, 44) and Strabo (xvi. p. 778) bear witness to the great wealth of the Nabateans and other Arab tribes on the Elanitic Gulf, and mention not only a river, said to flow through the land, carrying gold dust with it, but also gold that was dug up, and which was found, “not in the form of sand, but of nuggets, which did not require much cleaning, and the smallest of which were of the size of a nut, the average size being that of a medlar, whilst the largest pieces were as big as a walnut. These they bored, and made necklaces or bracelets by stringing them together alternately with transparent stones. They also sold the gold very cheap to their neighbours, giving three times the quantity for copper, and double the quantity for iron, both on account of their inability to work these metals, and also because of the scarcity of the metals which were so much more necessarily for daily use” ( Strabo ). The Sabaeans and Gerrhaeans are also mentioned as the richest of all the tribes of Arabia, through their trade in incense and in cinnamon and other spices.

(Note: “They possess an immense quantity of gold and silver articles, such as beds, tripods, bowls, and cups, in addition to the decorations of their houses; for doors, walls, and ceilings are all wrought with ivory, gold, silver, and precious stones” ( Strabo ut sup.). In accordance with this, Pliny ( n. h. 6, 28) not only calls the Sabaeans “ ditissimos silvarum fertilitate odorifera, auri metallis, etc.,” but the tribes of Arabia in general, “in universum gentes ditissimas, ut apud quas maximae opes Romanorum Parthorum que subsistant, vendentibus quae e mari aut silvis capiunt, nihil invicem redimentibus .”)

From the Arabs, who carried on a very extensive caravan trade through the desert even at that time, the Israelites would be able to purchase such spices and materials for the building of the tabernacle as they had not brought with them from Egypt; and in Egypt itself, where all descriptions of art and handicraft were cultivated from the very earliest times (for proofs see Hengst . Egypt, pp. 133-139), they might so far have acquired all the mechanical and artistic ability required for the work, that skilled artisans could carry out all that was prescribed, under the superintendence of the two master-builders who had been specially inspired for the purpose.