For the gate of the court refers to “the entrance itself” (Good News Translation) into the courtyard. It was to be in the center of the eastern side, with about 7½ yards between the one edge of it and the northeast corner, and 7½ yards between the other edge of it and the southeast corner. (See verses 14-15.) There shall be a screen is simply “a screen,” the same word (masak) used in 26.36 for the screen at the eastern end of the tabernacle. (See the comment there.) Twenty cubits long is about “10 yards long” (Good News Translation), or “9 meters.”

Of blue and purple and scarlet stuff and fine twined linen is identical to the description in 26.31 and 36. (See the comment at 26.1 for the materials, and at 25.4 for the colors.) Embroidered with needlework is identical with 26.36.

It shall have four pillars and with them four bases is literally “their pillars four and their bases four.” The plural pronoun in “their bases” refers to the four pillars, but the same pronoun in “their pillars” seems to have no antecedent. New Jerusalem Bible changes this to the singular, “with its four poles and their four sockets.” Good News Translation avoids this grammatical problem: “It is to be supported by four posts in four bases” (similarly New International Version, New American Bible, Revised English Bible, and others).

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 .