Five curtains shall be coupled to one another is literally “Five pieces will be joined a woman unto her sister.” “Woman” and “her sister” are used as pronouns referring to the curtains, which in Hebrew is a feminine noun. It simply means “Five of the cloths shall be joined to one another” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). Good News Translation continues the idea of a command, “Sew five of them together in one set.” One may also say “Have them sew five pieces together as one set.”

And the other five curtains … repeats the same words, except that the other is added in translation. The sewing, or joining, was to be along the length of each piece (twenty-eight cubits) rather than the width. In this way the five widths of four cubits each totaled twenty cubits. So the size of each set of five was twenty cubits by twenty-eight cubits, or about ten by fourteen yards.

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .