Exodus 25:10
Frame an ark of setim wood, the length whereof shall be of two cubits and a half: the breadth, a cubit and a half: the height, likewise, a cubit and a half.
Open Exodus 25:10 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- arcam de lignis setim compingite, cujus longitudo habeat duos et semis cubitos : latitudo, cubitum et dimidium : altitudo, cubitum similiter ac semissem.
- Septuagint (Swete) shown from Exodus 25:9
- Καὶ ποιήσεις κιβωτὸν μαρτυρίου ἐκ ξύλων ἀσήπτων, δύο πήχεων καὶ ἡμίσους τὸ μῆκος, καὶ πήχεος καὶ ἡμίσους τὸ πλάτος, καὶ πήχεος καὶ ἡμίσους τὸ ὕψος.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְעָשׂ֥וּ אֲר֖וֹן עֲצֵ֣י שִׁטִּ֑ים אַמָּתַ֨יִם וָחֵ֜צִי אָרְכּ֗וֹ וְאַמָּ֤ה וָחֵ֨צִי֙ רָחְבּ֔וֹ וְאַמָּ֥ה וָחֵ֖צִי קֹמָתֽוֹ
Haydock's commentary
Ark, to contain the tables of the law, as a constant memorial of the alliance made between God and his people, ver. 16. In, or on the side of it, were also placed the rod of Aaron, (Numbers xvii. 10.) and the golden urn, containing manna, Hebrews ix. 3. Hence the pagans perhaps took occasion to keep their secret mysteries in an ark, cista secretorum. (Apuleius, Met. 2.) (Calmet)
The ark was three feet nine inches long, two feet three inches high, and as much in breadth. (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Irenaeus Against Heresies: Book II, Chapter XXIV. Folly of the arguments
3. For, choosing out of the law whatever things agree with the number adopted in their system, they thus violently strive to obtain proofs of its validity. But if it was really the purpose of their Mother, or the Saviour, to set forth, by means of the Demiurge, types of those things which are in the Pleroma, they should have taken care that the types were found in things more exactly correspondent and more holy; and, above all, in the case of the Ark of the Covenant, on account of which the whole tabernacle of witness was formed. Now it was constructed thus: its length was two cubits and a half, its breadth one cubit and a half, its height one cubit and a half; but such a number of cubits in no respect corresponds with their system, yet by it the type ought to have been, beyond everything else, clearly set forth. …
St Hippolytus On Daniel, Section II
5. In mentioning the “other,” moreover, he specifies the seventh, in which there is rest. But some one may be ready to say, How will you prove to me that the Saviour was born in the year 5500? Learn that easily, O man; for the things that took place of old in the wilderness, under Moses, in the case of the tabernacle, were constituted types and emblems of spiritual mysteries, in order that, when the truth came in Christ in these last days, you might be able to perceive that these things were fulfilled. For He says to him, “And thou shalt make the ark of imperishable wood, and shalt overlay it with pure gold within and without; and thou shalt make the length of it two cubits and a half, and the breadth thereof one cubit and a half, and a cubit and a half the height;” which measures, when summed up together, make five cubits and a half, so that the 5500 years might be signified thereby.