Genesis 24:60

Summary

The verse reports that Rebekah's family formally blesses her before her departure, expressing two wishes: that she become the ancestor of a vast multitude, and that her offspring gain control over the "gate" of those who oppose them.

Key words

• yevarakhu ("they blessed", H1288) — piel stem, giving the verb an intensive/formal sense; narrative vav marks it as the next event in sequence.
• 'achotenu ("sister of us", H0269) — feminine singular noun in construct with the suffix "our", framing the blessing as a kinship address from the family group.
• heyi ("become", H1961) — qal imperative, feminine singular, directly commanding/wishing something upon Rebekah herself.
• yirash ("may it take possession", H3423H) — qal imperfect with vav, continuing the wish begun by the imperative; functions as a jussive expressing a hoped-for future outcome for the offspring.
• son'av ("those hating him", H8130) — qal participle, masculine plural, in construct, carrying a third-person masculine singular suffix ("his") rather than agreeing with the feminine "your offspring."

What the text says

The verse divides into a narrative frame (va-yevarakhu... va-yo'meru, "and they blessed... and they said") followed by direct speech. The speech itself has two parallel wish-clauses: the first uses the imperative heyi ("become") addressed to Rebekah in the second person feminine singular, wishing her to become "le-'alphei revavah" — literally "to thousands of ten-thousand," a construct phrase multiplying two large numerical terms rather than a fixed idiom, expressing enormous increase. The second clause shifts from an imperative to ve-yirash, an imperfect verb with vav that carries a jussive nuance ("and let it take possession"), extending the blessing forward into the destiny of zar'ekh ("your offspring", H2233H), a masculine singular construct noun with a second-person feminine singular suffix.

A grammatical detail not visible in translation is the suffix on son'av ("those hating him/it"): although the offspring is addressed to Rebekah ("your offspring"), the participle "haters" carries a masculine singular suffix, referring back to zera ("offspring") as a collective masculine singular noun rather than to Rebekah or to a plural group of descendants. The object marked by 'et (H0853) before sha'ar ("gate", H8179G) shows that "gate" is the direct object of yirash, syntactically singular, denoting a specific structure rather than an abstract territory.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew has sha'ar ("gate", singular) as the object to be possessed; the LXX renders this as τὰς πόλεις ("the cities", plural), a divergence in both number and referent (gate vs. city). Where the Hebrew participle son'av carries a third-person masculine singular suffix ("his haters," referring to the collective "offspring"), the LXX gives τῶν ὑπεναντίων ("of the adversaries") without an explicit possessive pronoun, while the Vulgate's inimicorum suorum ("their own enemies") uses a plural reflexive that shifts the referent to a plural group rather than the singular collective noun found in the Hebrew.