Genesis 24:51

Summary

Genesis 24:51 records the words of Laban (and Bethuel's household) responding to Abraham's servant, presenting Rebekah to him and authorizing her departure to become the wife of Isaac. The verse frames the decision as consistent with what Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068) had already spoken.

Key words

• hinneh ("here!", H2009) — an interjection that draws attention to Rebekah's presence, functioning almost as a presentative ("behold").
• qach ("take", H3947) — qal imperative, a direct command giving the servant permission/instruction to take Rebekah.
• lekh ("go", H1980) — qal imperative, paired with qach by the conjunction va ("and", H9002), forming a two-part command: take and go.
• tehi ("may she be", H1961) — qal jussive, expressing a wish or authorization rather than a flat statement; grammatically distinct from a simple future or indicative "she will be."
• dibber ("he has spoken", H1696) — piel perfect, marking a completed act of speech; the piel stem here intensifies the verb of speaking, referring back to Yehovah's prior declaration.

What the text says

The verse opens with the presentative hinneh ("here!", H2009) followed by the noun Rivqah ("Rebekah", H7259) and the prepositional phrase le-fanei-kha ("before you", H6440/H9021), literally "to your face." This construction places Rebekah spatially and rhetorically in front of the addressee before any verb appears, giving the sentence an emphatic, almost visual quality that a simple declarative translation cannot fully render.

The two imperatives qach ("take", H3947) and lekh ("go", H1980), joined by va ("and", H9002), form a compact command sequence. This is followed by u-tehi ("so may she be", H1961), where the jussive mood shifts the sentence from command to permission or wish — the speaker is not simply predicting a future state but sanctioning it. The phrase ishah le-ven-adonei-kha ("a wife for the son of your master(s)", H0802/H1121/H0113) uses the construct chain ben-adonekha ("son of your master", literally with H0113 in plural form though referring to a single master) to identify Isaac by relation to Abraham.

The closing clause ka'asher dibber Yehovah ("just as Yehovah has spoken", H0834/H1696/H3068) uses the piel perfect dibber to anchor the present authorization to a prior completed divine utterance, tying the human decision to an earlier reported statement.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew adonei-kha ("your master(s)", H0113) is grammatically plural in form (a common honorific plural for a single master), which the Vulgate renders with singular domini tui ("your master") and the LXX with τοῦ κυρίου σου ("of your lord"), both interpreting it as singular. The LXX's καθὰ Κύριος omits an explicit verb of speaking present in the Hebrew dibber ("he has spoken", H1696), while the Vulgate's sicut locutus est Dominus preserves that verbal sense.