Genesis 26:31
וַיַּשְׁכִּימוּ בַבֹּקֶר וַיִּשָּׁבְעוּ אִישׁ לְאָחִיו וַיְשַׁלְּחֵם יִצְחָק וַיֵּלְכוּ מֵאִתּוֹ בְּשָׁלֽוֹם׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיַּשְׁכִּ֣ימוּ בַבֹּ֔קֶר וַיִּשָּׁבְע֖וּ אִ֣ישׁ לְאָחִ֑יו וַיְשַׁלְּחֵ֣ם יִצְחָ֔ק וַיֵּלְכ֥וּ מֵאִתּ֖וֹ בְּשָׁלֽוֹם׃
καὶ ἀναστάντες τὸ πρωί, ὤμοσαν ἄνθρωπος τῷ πλησίον αὐτοῦ· καὶ ἐξαπέστειλεν αὐτοὺς Ἰσαάκ, καὶ ἀπῴχοντο ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ μετὰ σωτηρίας.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
surgentes mane, juraverunt sibi mutuo: dimisitque eos Isaac pacifice in locum suum.
A la mañana siguiente se levantaron temprano y se hicieron un juramento mutuo. Luego Isaac los despidió, y ellos se fueron en paz.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y se levantaron de madrugada, y juraron el uno al otro; é Isaac los despidió, y ellos se partieron de él en paz.
And they got up early the next morning and swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they left him in peace.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse narrates the closing scene of the covenant between Isaac and Abimelech's group at Beersheba: the men rise early, exchange a mutual oath, Isaac sends them away, and they depart peacefully. The sentence is a chain of four consecutive narrative actions marking the sequence of events.
Key words
- yishave'u ("they swore an oath", H7650) — niphal form, expressing a reciprocal or self-involving act rather than a simple active oath.
- ish le'achiv ("each to his brother", H0376I + H0251G) — idiomatic construction using "man" + "to his brother" to convey the reciprocal sense "to one another."
- yeshallechem ("he sent them off", H7971G) — piel (intensive) stem, suggesting a deliberate, formal act of dismissal by Isaac.
- me'itto ("from with him", H0854 + prefix) — preposition indicating separation, "away from him."
- shalom ("peace", H7965G) — final word of the verse, marking the manner of their departure.
What the text says
The verse is built entirely on the narrative vav-consecutive chain, a hallmark of Biblical Hebrew storytelling: vayashkimu ("and they rose early", H7925), vayishave'u ("and they swore", H7650), vayeshallechem ("and he sent them", H7971G), vayelekhu ("and they went", H1980G). Each verb builds directly on the previous action, giving the verse a rapid, sequential rhythm without subordinate clauses.
The phrase ish le'achiv (H0376I, H0251G) does not name specific individuals but uses the distributive idiom "a man to his brother," which functions grammatically to express mutuality — the oath is sworn by each party toward the other, not by one group toward another. The suffix on achiv ("his brother") attaches the reciprocal sense directly onto the noun.
The final clause vayelekhu me'itto beshalom combines a verb of motion (vayelekhu, H1980G) with a preposition of separation (me'itto, H0854) and the noun shalom (H7965G), producing the sense "they went away from him in peace" — the peace describes the condition of their departure, not a location or destination.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders ish le'achiv ("each to his brother") as ἄνθρωπος τῷ πλησίον αὐτοῦ ("a man to his neighbor"), shifting the relational term from "brother" to "neighbor." The LXX also translates beshalom ("in peace") as μετὰ σωτηρίας ("with safety/salvation"), a broader term than the Hebrew shalom. The Vulgate's pacifice corresponds closely to shalom, but adds in locum suum ("to his own place"), a detail not present in the Hebrew text, which only states me'itto ("from him") without specifying a destination.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.