complete verse (Exodus 26:3)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 26:3:

  • Kupsabiny: “Someone stitch/sew the five curtains together to become one big cloth and then someone stitch/sew also the other five to become one big cloth.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “Make a single cloth by joining the five cloth panels. And do the same to the other five cloth panels too.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “Join five of these (together); (join) five of them twice.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “Sew five cloths so that they go and join together and so become long. And do like that also with the other five cloths.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Opo: “Five, you shall sew it together, and five other, you do it thus.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
  • English: “Tell them to sew five strips together to make one set, and sew the other five strips together to make another set.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Exod 26:3

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 .