Genesis 27:15

Summary

Rebekah takes the garments of her son Esau — described as hagadol ("the big one", H1419K) — and dresses her son Jacob, called haqqatan ("the small one", H6996A), in them. The verse marks the physical transfer of Esau's clothing onto Jacob as part of the disguise.

Key words

• tiqqach ("she took", H3947G) — qal verb with narrative vav, opening the sequence of actions performed by Rebekah.
• bigdei ("clothes of", H0899B) — masculine plural noun in construct state, linking directly to "Esau" as the possessor.
• hachamudot ("the desirable [things]", H2532B) — feminine plural noun with article, standing in apposition to bigdei to further qualify the garments.
• hagadol ("the big/great one", H1419K) — adjective with article modifying benah ("her son"), distinguishing Esau within the sentence.
• talbesh ("she clothed", H3847) — hiphil (causative) verb with narrative vav, indicating Rebekah causes Jacob to be dressed, rather than Jacob dressing himself.

What the text says

The verse is built on two narrative-vav verbs, tiqqach ("she took") and talbesh ("she clothed"), both third-person feminine, keeping Rebekah as the grammatical subject throughout. The first clause has a long object phrase: et bigdei 'Esav benah hagadol hachamudot 'asher ittah babbayit — "the clothes of Esau her son, the big one, the desirable ones, which were with her in the house." Here bigdei is in construct with 'Esav, while benah hagadol ("her son, the big one") is in apposition, identifying which son is meant. The noun hachamudot is separately articulated and stands in apposition to bigdei, functioning to qualify the garments as a distinct descriptive unit rather than as a simple adjective attached directly to the noun.

The second clause mirrors the construction: va-talbesh et Ya'aqov benah haqqatan — "and she clothed Jacob, her son, the small one." The parallel use of benah hagadol / benah haqqatan ("her son, the big one" / "her son, the small one") sets up a structural contrast between the two sons using the same syntactic pattern, with only the adjective differing.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew hachamudot is a plural noun ("the desirable things"), which the LXX renders with a singular adjective, kalēn ("the good/fine one"), agreeing with "garment" (stolēn), and the Vulgate renders as valde bonis ("very good," plural, modifying vestibus, "garments"). The Hebrew adjectives gadol ("big") and qatan ("small") are rendered by the LXX as presbyterou ("elder") and neōterou ("younger"), and by the RV1909/BSB/SBLIBRE as "mayor/older" and "menor/younger" — translating the size-adjectives with age-terms not explicit in the base Hebrew glosses.