Genesis 24:49

Summary

The servant of Abraham, having concluded his account, asks Laban and Bethuel to declare whether they will act with chesed ("loyalty", H2617A) and emet ("faithfulness", H0571G) toward his master. He frames this as a binary condition: an affirmative answer or a negative one, with a stated consequence for the negative case.

Key words

• yesh.Khem ("[are] there" + "you", H3426 + H9046) — the particle yesh combined with the second-person plural suffix forms an existential construction, literally "there is to you," used here to introduce the conditional "if you have [it in you] to do."
• 'o.Sim ("doing", H6213A) — a qal participle, masculine plural, describing an ongoing or characteristic action ("the ones doing") rather than a single completed act.
• Che.sed ("loyalty", H2617A) and 'e.Met ("faithfulness", H0571G) — two nouns joined by ve ("and", H9002), forming a fixed pair describing covenantal reliability, the object of the participle 'o.Sim.
• ha.Gi.du ("tell", H5046) — hiphil imperative, plural, a causative form ("cause to be told/declared"), repeated twice in the verse (once for the affirmative branch, once for the negative).
• 'ef.Neh ("I may turn", H6437G) — qal imperfect with prefixed ve, first person, expressing a consequence or purpose following the imperative: "so that I may turn."

What the text says

The verse opens with ve'atah ("and now", H9002 + H6258), a discourse marker shifting from narrative to direct address. The conditional structure is built with 'im ("if", H0518A) governing the existential phrase yesh.Khem 'o.Sim, literally "if there is to you [those] doing loyalty and faithfulness" — an idiomatic way of asking whether the addressees are willing or able to act in this manner. The object of that action is marked by 'et ("with", H0854) plus 'adoNi ("my master", H0113 with H9020 suffix), specifying toward whom the chesed and emet would be shown.

The sentence then splits into two parallel imperative clauses, both using ha.Gi.du... li ("tell... to me"), first for the case where the answer is affirmative, then repeated after ve'im lo' ("and if not", H3808) for the negative case. This repetition of the same imperative verb in both branches, rather than a different verb for refusal, gives the request a symmetrical, formulaic structure in Hebrew: the same act of speech ("tell me") is required regardless of the answer.

The final clause, introduced by ve'ef.neh ("and I may turn"), states the servant's resulting action if refused: turning 'al yamin ("to right", H3225G) o ("or", H0176A) 'al semol ("to left", H8040G) — a spatial idiom for choosing another direction or path.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew pair chesed ve'emet as heleos kai dikaiosynēn ("mercy and righteousness"), where dikaiosynēn diverges from a strict rendering of 'emet ("faithfulness"). The Vulgate uses misericordiam et veritatem ("mercy and truth"), closer to the Hebrew pairing. For the final clause, the Hebrew's concrete "turn to right or to left" is preserved literally in the LXX (eis dexian ē eis aristeron) and Vulgate (ad dextram, sive ad sinistram), while the BSB renders it more abstractly as "go elsewhere," omitting the right/left imagery present in the Hebrew and both ancient versions.