Genesis 24:46
וַתְּמַהֵר וַתּוֹרֶד כַּדָּהּ מֵֽעָלֶיהָ וַתֹּאמֶר שְׁתֵה וְגַם־גְּמַלֶּיךָ אַשְׁקֶה וָאֵשְׁתְּ וְגַם הַגְּמַלִּים הִשְׁקָֽתָה׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַתְּמַהֵ֗ר וַתּ֤וֹרֶד כַּדָּהּ֙ מֵֽעָלֶ֔יהָ וַתֹּ֣אמֶר שְׁתֵ֔ה וְגַם־גְּמַלֶּ֖יךָ אַשְׁקֶ֑ה וָאֵ֕שְׁתְּ וְגַ֥ם הַגְּמַלִּ֖ים הִשְׁקָֽתָה׃
καὶ σπεύσασα καθδῖλεν τὴν ὑδρίαν ἐπὶ τὸν βραχίονα αὐτῆς άφ᾿ ἑαυτῆς καὶ εἶπεν Πίε σύ, καὶ τὰς καμήλους σου ποτιῶ· καὶ ἔπιον, καὶ τὰς καμήλους μου ἐπότισεν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Quæ festinans deposuit hydriam de humero, et dixit mihi: Et tu bibe, et camelis tuis tribuam potum. Bibi, et adaquavit camelos.
Ella enseguida bajó su cántaro del hombro y me dijo: ‘Beba usted, y también les daré de beber a sus camellos’. Así que yo bebí, y ella también les dio agua a los camellos.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y prestamente bajó su cántaro de encima de sí, y dijo: Bebe, y también á tus camellos daré á beber. Y bebí, y dió también de beber á mis camellos.
She quickly lowered her jar from her shoulder and said, ‘ Drink, and I will water your camels as well.’ So I drank, and she also watered the camels.
✦ What the text says
Summary
This verse is part of the servant's retelling to Laban's household of his encounter with Rebekah at the well. It recounts how she quickly lowered her jar, offered him water, then also watered his camels, using a mix of narrative past-tense verbs and reported direct speech.
Key words
- temaher ("she hurried", H4116A) — piel stem intensifies the action, emphasizing speed rather than simple movement.
- tored ("she put down", H3381) — hiphil (causative) form: she causes the jar to descend, not merely that it falls.
- ashqeh ("I will give a drink to", H8248G) — hiphil imperfect, marking an action not yet completed at the moment of speaking (future/ongoing), matching the promise "I will water".
- va'eshet ("I drank", H8354) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive), showing the servant's own completed action within the chain of events.
- hishqatah ("she gave a drink", H8248G) — hiphil perfect, marking the watering of the camels as a fully completed act, contrasting with the imperfect ashqeh used earlier for the promise.
What the text says
The Hebrew alternates between narrative vav-consecutive verbs (temaher, tored, tomer) that carry the story forward in sequence, and reported direct speech containing an imperfect verb (ashqeh) expressing a future/incomplete action at the time of utterance. The final verb, hishqatah, shifts to the perfect aspect, marking that the watering was fully accomplished — a grammatical shift from promise (imperfect) to fulfillment (perfect) that the English glosses "I will water" and "she watered" preserve but do not grammatically highlight as an aspectual contrast.
The phrase me'aleyha ("from upon her", H5921A + H9034) describes only that the jar came off her without specifying a body part; the container's exact position before being lowered is not lexically stated in the Hebrew.
Differences between versions
The Hebrew states only that she lowered the jar me'aleyha ("from upon her"), without naming a body part. The LXX adds ἐπὶ τὸν βραχίονα αὐτῆς ("upon her arm/shoulder"), and the Vulgate similarly specifies "de humero" ("from the shoulder"). Both versions supply an anatomical detail not present in the Hebrew wording at this point.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.