Genesis 24:28

Summary

The verse reports two sequential actions by "the young woman" (Rebekah, though unnamed here): she ran, and she told her mother's household what had happened, matching it to "these words" or "these things" just narrated in the preceding verses.

Key words

• Ta.rotz ("she ran", H7323) — qal narrative form (wayyiqtol), marking a discrete completed action moved forward by the vav prefix.
• na.'a.Ra ("young woman", H5291) — feminine singular noun with definite article, referring back to the female subject already introduced in the chapter.
• ta.Ged ("she told", H5046) — hiphil (causative) narrative form: the causative stem frames the act of telling as "causing [something] to become known," distinct from a simple "she said."
• Veit + 'i.Ma + h ("household of her mother" + "her", H1004/H0517/H9024) — a construct chain (noun + noun + pronominal suffix) meaning literally "house-of mother-of-her."
• ka.de.va.Rim ha.'E.leh ("according to these things/words", H9004+H1697+H0428) — preposition ka ("according to/like") + plural noun + demonstrative, indicating conformity to a specific prior set of statements or events.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built from two wayyiqtol (narrative) verbs chained by the vav prefix: va.Ta.rotz ("and she ran") followed by va.ta.Ged ("and she told"). This sequence presents the actions as consecutive and tightly linked in narrative time — running directly leads to telling. The second verb, ta.Ged, is in the hiphil stem, which in Biblical Hebrew often carries causative force; here it frames the act of reporting as making information known to others, rather than using the more neutral verb "to say" ('amar).

The phrase le.Veit 'i.Ma-h ("to the household of her mother") uses a construct chain to specify not just an individual but an entire household unit, with the pronominal suffix -h ("her") anchoring the possession to the young woman just mentioned. The final phrase, ka.de.va.Rim ha.'E.leh ("according to these things"), is a comparative construction using ka ("like/according to"): it signals that what she told matched a specific set of de.va.Rim ("words" or "things", H1697) — a term that in Biblical Hebrew can denote spoken words, matters, or events, without specifying which sense applies here through morphology alone.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the final Hebrew phrase ka.de.va.Rim ha.'E.leh ("according to these things") as "omnia quæ audierat" ("all that she had heard"), introducing an interpretive gloss (hearing) not explicit in the Hebrew wording, which uses "according to" rather than a verb of perception. The LXX's κατὰ τὰ ῥήματα ταῦτα ("according to these words") tracks the Hebrew construction more closely than the Vulgate does.