Genesis 24:42

Summary

The servant of Abraham recounts to Laban's household how he came to the spring earlier that day and prayed to Yehovah, asking that his journey be made successful. The verse is embedded in reported speech, repeating the prayer given earlier in the chapter.

Key words

• 'a.Vo' ("I came", H0935G) — qal narrative verb form, first person; the narrative vav prefix links this action sequentially to the surrounding story ("and then I came").
• 'A.yin ("spring", H5869M) — feminine singular noun with the definite article, marking a specific, already-known location in the narrative.
• matz.Li.ach ("[the one] making successful", H6743B) — hiphil (causative) participle, masculine singular; describes an ongoing or characteristic action ("the one who causes success") rather than a simple past or future verb.
• na' ("please", H4994) — interjection expressing entreaty, softening the conditional request that follows.
• ho.Lekh ("[am] going", H1980G) — qal participle, masculine singular, expressing the ongoing nature of the journey ("the one going"), paired with the independent pronoun 'a.no.Khi ("I", H0595) for emphasis.

What the text says

The verse opens with two narrative-vav verb forms — 'a.Vo' ("I came") and 'o.Mar ("I said") — which chain the servant's actions sequentially: arrival at the spring, then speech. This vav-consecutive pattern is typical of Hebrew narrative sequencing and is not distinctly rendered in English translations, which use simple past tense connectors ("so... and").

The prayer itself is introduced with the divine name Yah.weh (H3068G) followed by 'e.lo.Hei ("God of", H0430G), a construct form linking Yehovah to "my master Abraham." The conditional clause begins with 'im- ("if", H0518A) followed by yesh.kha ("there is to you") plus the interjection na' ("please"), a common Hebrew construction expressing a polite request or wish, softened rather than a strict logical condition. The participle matz.Li.ach ("making successful") functions almost as a title or descriptive quality attributed to Yehovah in this request, rather than a single completed action — suggesting an ongoing capacity to grant success. The final clause uses another participle, ho.Lekh ("going"), reinforcing the durative, in-progress sense of the servant's journey, paired with the emphatic independent pronoun 'a.no.Khi ("I").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'im- ("if") with εἰ ("if"), matching the Hebrew conditional structure, and translates matz.Li.ach with εὐοδοῖς ("you make prosperous"), a finite verb rather than the Hebrew's participle form. The Vulgate similarly uses "si direxisti" ("if you have directed"), a finite past-tense verb, which shifts the participial, ongoing nuance of the Hebrew into a completed action. The BSB captures the entreaty force of na' with "if only," while the SBLIBRE renders it as "te ruego que" ("I beg you"), making the polite-request nuance explicit rather than implicit as in the Hebrew interjection.