Genesis 24:31

Summary

Laban addresses Abraham's servant, inviting him inside with the greeting "blessed of Yehovah" and asking why he remains outside, stating that he has already cleared the house and prepared a place for the camels. The verse is entirely direct speech, framed by the narrative verb vayyomer ("and he said", H0559).

Key words

• Bo' ("come", H0935G) — qal imperative, a direct command opening the speech.
• beRukh ("blessed of", H1288) — qal passive participle, masculine singular construct, syntactically bound to Yehovah (H3068G): "one blessed of YHWH."
• ta'aMod ("are you standing", H5975G) — qal imperfect, expressing an action seen as ongoing ("why do you keep standing outside").
• piNiti ("I have made clear", H6437G) — piel perfect, first person, marking a completed action prior to the moment of speech.
• lamah (H9005 + H4100) — compound interrogative "why," formed from the preposition le plus mah ("what").

What the text says

The sentence opens with the narrative vayyomer ("and he said"), without an explicit subject or addressee stated in the Hebrew clause itself — the speaker (Laban) and hearer are supplied by the surrounding narrative context, not by grammatical markers in this verse. The direct speech begins with the bare imperative bo' ("come"), followed immediately by the construct phrase beRukh Yehovah, "blessed of Yehovah," a passive participle governing the divine name as its construct complement — grammatically this describes the addressee, not an independent blessing formula.

The question lamah ta'amod bachutz uses the imperfect ta'amod, which in Hebrew narrative can carry a durative nuance — "why are you continuing to stand" — rather than a single punctual act. This contrasts with the following clause, where the piel perfect piniti marks a completed prior action: "I have cleared" the house. The verbal root behind piniti (H6437) relates to turning or clearing a space, and the gloss "I have made clear" reflects this sense of clearing out rather than general preparation. The clause ends with u-maqom lagemallim, "and a place for the camels," where maqom (H4725) stands without a finite verb, its predication carried over from piniti.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew verb piniti (H6437G, "I have made clear/cleared out") is rendered in the LXX as ēetoimasa ("I have prepared") and in the Vulgate as praeparavi ("I have prepared"). Both versions convey general preparation, while the Hebrew root more specifically denotes clearing or turning out a space. Additionally, the LXX expands the bare imperative bo' ("come") into Deuro eiselthe ("come, enter"), adding a verb of entering not present as a separate word in the Hebrew.