Genesis 24:61

Summary

Rebekah and her female attendants rise, mount the camels, and follow the man (Abraham's servant). The servant then takes Rebekah and departs, concluding the betrothal scene.

Key words

• Ta.kom ("she arose", H6965B) — qal narrative verb, third person feminine singular; opens the sequence of Rebekah's actions.
• na.'a.ro.Tei.ha ("her maids", H5291) — feminine plural noun in construct with the pronominal suffix ha ("her"), identifying the attendants as belonging to Rebekah.
• tir.Kav.nah ("they rode", H7392) — qal narrative verb, third person feminine plural, marking a continued action by Rebekah and her maids together.
• te.Lakh.nah ("they went", H1980N) — qal narrative verb, feminine plural, describing the group's movement "after" ('a.cha.Rei, H0310A) "the man" ('Ish, H0376G).
• i.yi.Kach ("he took", H3947G) — qal narrative verb, third person masculine singular, marking the servant's action toward Rebekah, introduced with the direct object marker 'et (H0853).

What the text says

The verse is built entirely from a chain of narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs, each introduced by va- ("and", H9001), which produces the typical Hebrew storytelling rhythm of sequential events: she arose, they rode, they went, he took, he went. The subjects shift from feminine plural (Rebekah and her maids acting together) to masculine singular (the servant acting alone), and the grammar marks this shift precisely through verb agreement (tir.Kav.nah, te.Lakh.nah vs. i.yi.Kach, i.ye.Lakh).

The phrase na.'a.ro.Tei.ha ("her maids", H5291) uses a construct form with a pronominal suffix, so the noun itself encodes possession without a separate word for "her" — the Hebrew states in one word what English needs two words to express. Similarly, 'a.cha.Rei ha.'Ish ("after the man", H0310A + H0376G) uses a construct chain: the plural-form preposition 'a.cha.Rei is grammatically construct with "the man," a fixed idiomatic combination meaning "following/behind him." The final clause repeats va-yi.Kach ("he took") and va-ye.Lakh ("he went") with the same verb roots used earlier for Rebekah's rising and going, creating a grammatical echo between her independent movement and the servant's subsequent action of taking and departing with her.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders na.'a.ro.Tei.ha ("her maids") as αἱ ἅβραι αὐτῆς ("her female attendants/handmaids"), a synonymous but stylistically distinct term. The Vulgate's secutæ sunt virum ("they followed the man") corresponds to the Hebrew te.Lakh.nah 'a.cha.Rei ha.'Ish ("they went after the man"), but the Vulgate adds an explanatory clause not present in the Hebrew — qui festinus revertebatur ad dominum suum ("who was hastily returning to his master") — describing the servant's motive, which has no equivalent in the Hebrew text given here.