Genesis 27:10

Summary

Genesis 27:10 continues Rebekah's instructions to Jacob, telling him to bring prepared food to his father Isaac so that Isaac will eat it, with the stated purpose that Isaac bless him before dying. The verse uses two sequential verbs followed by a purpose clause.

Key words

• he.ve.Ta ("you will bring [it]", H0935P) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect, second person masculine; the causative stem indicates Jacob is to cause the food to arrive to his father, not merely go himself.
• 'a.Khal ("he will eat [it]", H0398) — qal sequential perfect, third person masculine; continues the narrative chain begun by the previous verb, marking a consequence that follows bringing the food.
• 'a.Vur ("order that", H5668) — masculine singular noun functioning with the following preposition ba ("in", H9003) to introduce purpose, equivalent to "in order that."
• ye.va.rekh. ("he may bless", H1288) — piel (intensive) jussive, third person masculine; the jussive mood expresses a wish or intended result rather than a simple future fact — "let him bless" rather than "he will bless."
• li.f.Nei ("before", H6440G with H9005) — construct form of "face" plus preposition, literally "to the face of," an idiom meaning "before" or "in the presence of," here modifying mo.T...o ("his death", H4194).

What the text says

The verse is built on a chain of two sequential perfect verbs — he.ve.Ta ("you will bring") and 'a.Khal ("he will eat") — both continuing the narrative sequence established in the preceding verse. This grammatical form (vav + perfect continuing a command) indicates consequence: first Jacob brings, then Isaac eats. The subject shifts between the two verbs without an explicit pronoun for Isaac, relying on the construct phrase le.'a.Vikha ("to your father", H0001G + H9021) to identify who will do the eating.

The purpose clause introduced by ba.'a.Vur 'a.Sher ("in order that") governs the jussive verb ye.va.rekh.kha ("he may bless you"). The piel stem of barakh ("to bless", H1288) is intensive in form, and the jussive mood frames the blessing as a desired outcome contingent on the prior actions, not a certainty. The temporal clause li.f.Nei mo.To ("before his death") uses the idiomatic construct "to the face of" plus "death" with a third-person pronominal suffix, situating the blessing within the limited window before Isaac's death.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) renders the purpose/blessing clause as "benedicat tibi priusquam moriatur" ("may he bless you before he dies"), preserving the subjunctive-like force of the Hebrew jussive ye.va.rekh.kha. The LXX (LXXSWETE) uses ὅπως εὐλογήσῃ σε ("so that he may bless you"), also maintaining a purpose construction with a subjunctive verb, consistent with the Hebrew's ba.'a.Vur 'a.Sher + jussive structure. The Spanish RV1909 and SBLIBRE both render the sequence with "para que" ("so that"), matching this purpose sense, though SBLIBRE glosses ye.va.rekh.kha as "él te dará su bendición" ("he will give you his blessing"), a more explicit noun-based rendering than the verbal form in the Hebrew.