Tafsiran Keluaran 28:7: Rashi, Chizkuni, Sforno & Rashbam

שתי כתפת וגו׳ TWO SHOULDER-PIECES, etc. — The apron was below and the חשב of the ephod was the belt, and this was joined to it on its top edge similar to the apron of ladies who ride on horseback. On the priest’s back there were joined to the belt two pieces like two wide straps, one opposite each shoulder. He lifted these up upon his two shoulders so that they hung down in front of him before his breast, and because they were joined to the rings in the breast-plate they were held fast in front of him upon his heart so that they could not fall off his shoulders backwards, just as is explained in this section (v. 28). Thus they lay on his back in an erect position and then passed over his shoulders and the two onyx stones were fixed on them, one stone upon each shoulder-piece.

שתי כתפות, “two epaulettes;” these have been mentioned first in verse 7. They looked like short belts joined to one another, and they would be attached to both the front and the back of the ephod. They would rest both over his right shoulder and over his left shoulder. They bore the name “shoulderpieces,” as they stood upright forming a kind of collar around the High Priest’s neck.

שתי כתפות חוברות, carefully matched in the construction of their decorations.

אל שני קצותיו AT THE TWO EXTREMITIES THEREOF — on the width of the ephod; for its width was equal only to that of the priest’s back (and did not go entirely round his body, so that one may well speak of the two extremities of the ephod), and its height was up to the elbows — which they call coudes in old French — and not higher, because it is said (Ezekiel 44:18) “they shall not gird themselves (בַּיָּזַע),” i. e. they shall not gird themselves in the place where one perspires (במקום זיעה) namely, not higher than their elbows and not lower than their loins, but only by their elbows (Zevachim 18b).

וחבר IT — the ephod — SHALL BE JOINED with the two shoulder-pieces of the ephod: he shall join them below the belt with a needle and he shall not weave them together with it, but he must weave them separately and join them afterwards.