Genesis 24:20

Summary

The verse narrates Rebekah's rapid sequence of actions at the well: she hurries, empties her jar into the trough, runs back to the well, and draws water for all the camels of the servant. The Hebrew emphasizes speed and repetition through a chain of consecutive verbs.

Key words

• temaher ("she hurried", H4116A) — piel stem, giving an intensive nuance ("she hurried herself/hastened") rather than a simple action; opens the narrative chain.
• te'ar ("she emptied", H6168) — piel stem, paired grammatically with temaher, both narrative forms marking successive quick actions ("and then... and then...").
• tarotz ("she ran", H7323G) — qal stem, a simple (non-intensive) verb of motion, contrasting with the piel verbs before it.
• od ("again", H5750) — glossed as a cardinal number but functioning adverbially here, marking repetition of the movement to the well.
• tish'av ("she drew water", H7579) — same root as the infinitive sho ("to draw water", H7579) two words earlier, creating a root repetition (infinitive + finite verb) that underlines purpose fulfilled.

What the text says

The verse is built as an unbroken chain of narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs — temaher, te'ar, tarotz, tish'av — each attached by the narrative vav that Hebrew uses to link sequential events ("and then... and then..."). This chaining, without subordinating conjunctions, produces a rapid, breathless rhythm in the Hebrew that mirrors the content: a woman moving quickly between trough, well, and camels.

Two of the verbs (temaher, te'ar) are in the piel stem, which here carries an intensive or purposeful force, while tarotz reverts to the plain qal stem. The infinitive sho ("to draw water", H7579) states purpose ("to draw"), and the same root reappears as the finite verb tish'av ("she drew water") — a repetition of root that in Hebrew narrative often marks the fulfillment of a stated intention. The final phrase, le-khol-gemalav ("for all his camels"), uses a construct chain (khol + gemalav) meaning "all of his camels," with the pronominal suffix -o ("his") referring back to the servant introduced earlier in the story.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the infinitive sho ("to draw water") with an explicit object, ἀντλῆσαι ὕδωρ ("to draw water"), where the Hebrew infinitive alone does not specify "water" grammatically (it is understood contextually). The Vulgate adds the verb dedit ("she gave"), producing "haustam omnibus camelis dedit" — "gave the drawn water to all the camels" — whereas the Hebrew verb tish'av only says she "drew" for the camels, without a separate verb of giving.