Genesis 24:25

Summary

Rebekah answers Abraham's servant, telling him that her household has abundant straw, fodder, and a place to spend the night. The sentence lists three items using a triple correlative structure without expressed verbs for the last two clauses.

Key words

• gam ("both/also", H1571) — appears three times, forming a gam...gam...gam pattern that links three parallel items ("both X, and Y, also Z"), giving the list an emphatic, cumulative rhythm.
• Toʾmer ("she said", H0559) — qal narrative verb, continuing the story's chain of consecutive actions ("and then she said").
• rav ("much", H7227A) — masculine singular adjective modifying mispoʾ ("fodder"), indicating the fodder specifically is abundant.
• mispoʾ ("fodder", H4554) — masculine singular noun naming animal feed, paired with teven ("straw", H8401) as the first two items in the list.
• laLun ("to spend the night", H3885A) — qal infinitive construct with prefixed la-, expressing purpose ("a place for lodging"), attached to maqom ("place", H4725).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative verb vattomer ("and she said"), introducing direct speech. The reported speech itself contains no further finite verbs for the three items listed; instead, the triple gam construction creates three parallel noun phrases functioning as an implied existential statement ("[there is] both straw, and also much fodder... and also a place to lodge"). This nominal-clause style is common in Biblical Hebrew for simple assertions of existence or possession, without needing a copula.

The adjective rav ("much") grammatically attaches only to mispoʾ ("fodder"), not to teven ("straw") or to maqom ("place"). This means the Hebrew text specifies abundance for the fodder alone, while straw and the lodging place are mentioned without a quantifier or descriptive modifier. The final phrase, maqom laLun ("a place to spend the night"), uses the infinitive construct laLun to express purpose — the place exists for the purpose of lodging — a common Hebrew way of expressing purpose clauses without a separate conjunction like "in order to."

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the final phrase as "locus spatiosus ad manendum" ("a spacious place for remaining"), adding the adjective "spacious" (spatiosus), which has no corresponding word in the Hebrew text; the Hebrew maqom laLun contains no adjective describing the place's size. The LXX renders maqom laLun more literally as "τόπος τοῦ καταλῦσαι" ("a place for lodging"), without adding a descriptive qualifier, staying closer to the Hebrew's unmodified noun phrase.