Genesis 24:37

Summary

The servant of Abraham recalls the oath his master imposed on him: not to take a wife for his son from among the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land Abraham resides. The verse is reported speech, embedded within the servant's larger narration to Laban's household.

Key words

• yashbi'eni ("he made me swear", H7650) — hiphil (causative) form of the root for "swear," indicating the master caused the servant to take an oath, not that the servant swore independently.
• tiqqach ("you must take", H3947) — qal imperfect, expressing an ongoing prohibition/future obligation, negated by lo ("not", H3808), forming the core of the oath's content.
• ishshah ("a wife", H0802) — feminine singular noun, the object that must not be taken from the specified group.
• mibbenot ("from the daughters of", H1323) — feminine plural construct, linking to hakkena'ani ("the Canaanite", H3669) to specify the excluded group by ethnic/genealogical origin.
• yoshev ("dwelling", H3427) — qal participle, describing an ongoing state ("the one who dwells"), used of the speaker's (Abraham's) continuous residence in the land.

What the text says

The verse opens with the causative verb yashbi'eni ("he made me swear," H7650), a hiphil form showing that the initiative for the oath belongs to the master (adoni, "my master," H0113), not the servant himself — the servant is grammatically the object of the causative action. The oath's content is introduced by the infinitive le'mor ("saying," H0559), a standard device in Biblical Hebrew for opening direct or reported speech.

The prohibition itself uses lo + qal imperfect (tiqqach, H3947), a common construction for negative commands or durative obligations, here forbidding the taking of an ishshah ("wife," H0802) for the son (livni, "for my son," H1121) from a specific source: mibbenot hakkena'ani — "from the daughters of the Canaanite" (H1323, H3669), using the singular gentilic collectively for the group. The relative clause asher anokhi yoshev be'artso ("whom I am dwelling in his land") uses the participle yoshev (H3427) to mark Abraham's ongoing residence, with the pronominal suffix -o ("its/his," H9023) on 'arts ("land," H0776) referring back to the Canaanite group.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the closing relative clause with two elements — "ἐν οἷς ἐγὼ παροικῶ" ("among whom I sojourn") and "ἐν τῇ γῆ αὐτῶν" ("in their land") — where the Hebrew has a single relative clause, asher anokhi yoshev be'artso ("whose land I dwell in"). The LXX verb παροικῶ ("I sojourn as a resident alien") also carries a nuance of temporary or non-native residence not explicit in the Hebrew participle yoshev ("dwelling," H3427), which is a more neutral term for residing. The Vulgate's habito ("I dwell") follows the Hebrew more closely in this respect, without the "sojourner" connotation.