Exodus 20:26

20:26 And you must not go up by steps to my altar, so that your nakedness is not exposed.’ ¹ 

Exodus 25:11

25:11 You are to overlay ²  it with pure gold – both inside and outside you must overlay it, ³  and you are to make a surrounding border ⁴  of gold over it.

Exodus 28:36

28:36 “You are to make a plate ⁵  of pure gold and engrave on it the way a seal is engraved: ⁶  “Holiness to the Lord.” ⁷ 

Exodus 30:7

30:7 Aaron is to burn sweet incense ⁸  on it morning by morning; when he attends ⁹  to the lamps he is to burn incense. ¹⁰ 

Exodus 33:4

33:4 When the people heard this troubling word ¹¹  they mourned; ¹²  no one put on his ornaments.

Exodus 40:23

40:23 And he set the bread in order on it ¹³  before the Lord, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Exodus 40:27

40:27 and he burned fragrant incense on it, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

[20:26]  ¹ tn Heb “uncovered” (so ASV, NAB).

[25:11]  ² tn The verbs throughout here are perfect tenses with the vav (ו) consecutives. They are equal to the imperfect tense of instruction and/or injunction.

[25:11]  ³ tn Here the verb is an imperfect tense; for the perfect sequence to work the verb would have to be at the front of the clause.

[25:11]  ⁴ tn The word זֵר (zer) is used only in Exodus and seems to describe something on the order of a crown molding, an ornamental border running at the top of the chest on all four sides. There is no indication of its appearance or function.

[28:36]  ³ tn The word צִּיץ (tsits) seems to mean “a shining thing” and so here a plate of metal. It originally meant “flower,” but they could not write on a flower. So it must have the sense of something worn openly, visible, and shining. The Rabbinic tradition says it was two fingers wide and stretched from ear to ear, but this is an attempt to give details that the Law does not give (see B. Jacob, Exodus, 818).

[28:36]  ⁴ tn Heb “the engravings of a seal”; this phrase is an adverbial accusative of manner.

[28:36]  ⁵ sn The engraving was a perpetual reminder of the holiness that was due the Lord (Heb “Yahweh”), that all the clothing, the furnishings, and the activities were to come under that description. This corresponded to the symbolism for the whole nation of binding the law between the eyes. It was to be a perpetual reminder of commitment.

[30:7]  ⁴ tn The text uses a cognate accusative (“incense”) with the verb “to burn” or “to make into incense/sweet smoke.” Then, the noun “sweet spices” is added in apposition to clarify the incense as sweet.

[30:7]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew is בְּהֵיטִיבוֹ (bÿhetivo), a Hiphil infinitive construct serving in a temporal clause. The Hebrew verb means “to make good” and so in this context “to fix” or “to dress.” This refers to cleansing and trimming the lamps.

[30:7]  ⁶ sn The point of the little golden altar of incense is normally for intercessory prayer, and then at the Day of Atonement for blood applied atonement. The instructions for making it show that God wanted his people to make a place for prayer. The instructions for its use show that God expects that the requests of his people will be pleasing to him.

[33:4]  ⁵ tn Or “bad news” (NAB, NCV).

[33:4]  ⁶ sn The people would rather have risked divine discipline than to go without Yahweh in their midst. So they mourned, and they took off the ornaments. Such had been used in making the golden calf, and so because of their association with all of that they were to be removed as a sign of remorse.

[40:23]  ⁶ tn Heb uses a cognate accusative construction, “he arranged the arrangement.”