Genesis 24:36

Summary

The servant reports that Sarah, wife of his master, bore a son to that master in her old age, and that the master subsequently gave this son everything he owns. The verse uses two consecutive narrative verbs to present this as a completed sequence of past events within the servant's speech.

Key words

• Teled ("she has borne", H3205) — qal narrative form; the vav-consecutive construction presents the birth as a sequential past event in the reported speech.
• 'Eshet ("wife of", H0802H) — feminine singular construct; links Sarah directly to the following noun 'adoni, forming "wife of my master."
• 'adoni ("my master", H0113 + H9020) — construct noun with 1st person suffix, repeated twice in the verse (once with la-, "to my master"), anchoring both the birth and the inheritance to the same figure.
• acharei ziknatah ("after her old age", H0310A + H2209 + H9024) — construct chain with 3rd person feminine suffix, specifying the timing of the birth relative to Sarah's life stage.
• va-yiten ("and he has given", H5414G) — second narrative qal verb, continuing the same chain of vav-consecutive forms begun with va-Teled, marking a second completed action by the same implied subject (the master).

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel narrative-vav clauses: va-Teled... ("and she bore...") and va-yiten... ("and he gave..."). Both use the vav-consecutive form typical of Hebrew narrative sequencing, even though this is reported speech within a larger conversation. The subject of the first verb is Sarah, explicitly identified by the construct phrase 'eshet 'adoni ("wife of my master"); the son born is described only as ven ("a son", H1121A), without a numeral, and is assigned la-'adoni ("to my master") using the preposition la- (H9005) attached to the same noun 'adoni.

The temporal note acharei ziknatah ("after her old age") uses a construct chain with a feminine pronominal suffix referring back to Sarah, situating the birth chronologically at the end of her life stage rather than specifying an age.

The second clause shifts subject implicitly to the master himself, who va-yiten ("gave") lo ("to him", via the preposition-suffix combination lo) 'et-kol-'asher-lo — literally "the object-marker of all that [belongs] to him." The relative particle 'asher (H0834A) introduces the possessed totality, and the doubled lo forms (recipient and possessor) create a compact expression: everything belonging to the giver is transferred to the son.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the son as υἱὸν ἕνα ("one son"), adding a numeral not present in the Hebrew ven ("a son", H1121A), which carries no numerical qualifier. The Vulgate's filium ("son") matches the Hebrew in lacking a numeral, aligning more closely with the unmarked Hebrew noun than the LXX does.