Genesis 25:26

Summary

The verse narrates the birth of the second twin, described as coming out with his hand gripping his brother's heel, and states that he was therefore named Jacob. It closes by noting that Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.

Key words

• ya.Tza' ("he came out", H3318M) — qal perfect, marking the completed act of emerging from the womb; the subject is 'a.Chi ("brother", H0251G) with 3ms suffix, referring to the second-born twin.
• 'o.Che.zet ("holding", H0270) — qal participle, feminine singular agreeing with ya.D ("hand", H3027G); the participle presents the grip as an ongoing state simultaneous with the birth, not a completed action.
• 'a.Kev ("heel", H6119) — construct noun naming the body part seized; its consonantal shape (ʿ-q-b) is echoed in the name Ya'aqob given two words later, linking the naming directly to this physical detail in the sentence.
• va-yiyq.Ra' ("and he called", H7121H) — narrative (vav-consecutive) form, the standard verb of sequential storytelling, introducing the naming act as the next event after the birth.
• le.det ("in the bearing/fathering", H3205) — qal infinitive construct with preposition be ("when"), forming a temporal clause; it takes the direct object marker 'oTam ("them", H0853+suffix), a masculine plural suffix referring to both twins collectively.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the temporal phrase 'achare-khen ("after this/thus", H0310A + H3651C), placing the second birth right after the first (described in the preceding verse). The main clause uses the qal perfect ya.Tza' for the completed action of emerging, while the participle 'o.Chezet describes the hand's grip as a simultaneous, ongoing circumstance — Hebrew often pairs a perfect main verb with a participle to show two actions happening at once rather than in sequence. The heel-grasping detail is immediately followed by the narrative verb va-yiyqra' ("and he called"), which introduces the naming; the text does not explicitly state a causal grammatical link ("because"), but the juxtaposition of 'aqev ("heel") and Ya'aqob places the phonetic resemblance directly in the reader's view.

The closing clause shifts to an infinitive construction, be-ledet 'otam ("when [they] were born them"), using the same root as le.det ("to bear/father", H3205) that appears elsewhere for both giving birth and fathering. The suffix 'otam is masculine plural, referring jointly to the two sons, and the infinitive itself does not specify a grammatical subject in the Hebrew text.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint makes explicit what the Hebrew infinitive leaves unspecified: it adds the subject Ῥεβέκκα ("Rebekah") to the verb "she bore them" (ἐγέννησεν αὐτοὺς Ῥεβέκκα), whereas the Hebrew be-ledet 'otam names no explicit subject for the bearing. The Vulgate text provided here (Sexagenarius erat Isaac quando nati sunt ei parvuli) contains only the final clause about Isaac's age and omits any equivalent for the earlier material on the second twin's birth, the hand grasping the heel, and the naming of Jacob found in both the Hebrew and the LXX.