Genesis 25:21

Summary

Isaac prays to Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) concerning his wife, who is barren, and Yehovah responds to his prayer. Rebekah then conceives. The verse frames the conception as the direct result of Isaac's petition and Yehovah's answering it.

Key words

• ya'tar ("he prayed", H6279) — qal narrative verb; the subject actively entreats.
• nokhach ("before", H5227) — construct form, here functioning to indicate direction/purpose "on behalf of" or "facing" his wife's situation.
• 'ishto ("his wife", H0802H) — feminine singular construct with pronominal suffix o ("his", H9023), appearing twice in the verse (v.21b for Isaac's wife, and at the end for Rebekah).
• 'aqarah ("barren", H6135) — feminine singular adjective describing the wife's condition, paired with the pronoun hi' ("she", H1931) for emphasis.
• ye'ater ("he was entreated", H6279) — same root as ya'tar but in niphal (passive) form; the identical consonantal root marks a wordplay between Isaac's action and Yehovah's responsive action.

What the text says

The Hebrew builds a tight structural parallel using the same verbal root H6279 twice: first in qal (ya'tar, "he entreated") describing Isaac's action toward Yehovah, then in niphal (ye'ater, "he was entreated") describing Yehovah's responsive action toward Isaac. This root-repetition creates a cause-and-effect symmetry in the Hebrew that a translation using two different verbs (like "prayed" / "heard") cannot fully preserve.

The phrase le-nokhach 'ishto ("to the-facing-of his wife") uses the construct noun nokhach ("before", H5227) to indicate that the prayer concerns his wife's situation — the construct chain links Isaac's petition directly to his wife's condition, described immediately after with ki 'aqarah hi' ("for barren [was] she"), where the independent pronoun hi' ("she", H1931) gives emphatic weight to the subject.

The final clause repeats 'ishto ("his wife") — the same construct-plus-suffix form used earlier for the barren wife — now attached to Rebekah's name explicitly, closing the narrative unit by naming the resolution (conception) applied to the same "wife" mentioned in the opening problem.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders le-nokhach 'ishto ("before/for his wife") as peri Rhebekkas tēs gynaikos autou ("concerning Rebekah his wife"), inserting Rebekah's name earlier than the Hebrew, which withholds her name until the final clause. The Vulgate's pro uxore sua ("for his wife") similarly does not name her until Rebeccae at the end, closer to the Hebrew's structure than the LXX. The wordplay between ya'tar and ye'ater (same root, active/passive) is not reproduced by either the LXX (edeito/epēkousen, different roots) or the Vulgate (deprecatus est/exaudivit, different roots).