Genesis 24:29

Summary

The verse introduces Laban as Rebekah's brother and narrates his immediate action: upon presumably hearing or seeing something related to the man at the spring, he runs out to meet him. The sentence has two parts — a nominal clause establishing the family relationship, followed by a narrative verb describing Laban's movement.

Key words

• 'ach ("brother", H0251G) — masculine singular noun, here functioning predicatively in a possessive construction ("to Rebekah [belonged] a brother").
• she.mo ("his name", H8034) — construct noun with pronominal suffix o ("his"), forming the common Hebrew naming formula "and his name [was]."
• va.yYaratz ("and he ran", H7323G) — Qal verb in the narrative (wayyiqtol) form, marking sequential action: "and then he ran."
• ha.Chutza ("outside", H2351) — masculine singular noun with directional he suffix (H9011), indicating motion toward the outside/exterior.
• ha.'Ayin ("the spring", H5869M) — feminine singular noun with definite article, marking the specific location toward which Laban runs.

What the text says

The verse opens with a nominal (verbless) clause: u-le-Rivkah 'ach ("and to-Rebekah [was] a brother"), using the preposition le (H9005) to express possession — a standard Hebrew construction where existence/belonging is expressed without a verb "to have." This is immediately followed by u-shemo Lavan ("and his-name [was] Laban"), the typical formula for introducing a character's name, where shem (H8034) stands in construct with the suffix o.

The second half of the verse shifts to narrative action marked by the wayyiqtol form vaYYaratz ("and he ran," H7323G), a Qal verb form used in Biblical Hebrew to advance sequential events in a story. The destination is expressed twice, first with ha.Chutza ("toward the outside," H2351 + directional he, H9011) and then specified further with 'el ha.'Ayin ("to the spring," H5869M). The doubling of directional phrases — "outside" and "to the spring" — gives spatial precision: Laban moves from an interior space toward an exterior location, specifically the spring.

Differences between versions

The LXX (ἔδραμεν, "he ran") and Vulgate (festinus egressus est, "he went out hastily") both render vaYYaratz with verbs of quick movement, though the Vulgate's phrasing emphasizes haste explicitly with festinus ("hastily"), an interpretive addition not present as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew, which uses only the verb "to run" without an added adverb of manner. The Hebrew's double directional phrase ("outside... to the spring") is compressed in the LXX and Vulgate into a single destination phrase ("to the man... at the spring" / "to the man, where the spring was").