Genesis 27:19

Summary

Jacob answers his father Isaac's question about his identity, claiming to be Esau the firstborn, asserting that he has done what was asked, and inviting Isaac to sit and eat the game so that he may receive the blessing.

Key words

• 'anokhi ("I", H0595) — independent personal pronoun; in Hebrew this creates an emphatic identification, since no verb "to be" links it to 'Esav, producing a bare juxtaposition "I — Esau."
• bekhorekha ("your firstborn", H1060) — construct noun with 2ms suffix, appositional to 'Esav, specifying the claimed status rather than merely the name.
• 'asiti ("I have done", H6213A) — qal perfect, marking a completed action; the speaker presents the deed as already accomplished, matching Isaac's prior request.
• tevarakheni ("she may bless me", H1288) — piel jussive with 1cs suffix; the piel stem intensifies the act of blessing, and the jussive expresses purpose/desired result ("so that... may bless").
• nafshekha ("your self/soul", H5315I) — construct noun with 2ms suffix; grammatically this is the subject of tevarakheni, so the clause literally reads "your nefesh may bless me," not simply "you."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative va-yo'mer ("and he said", H0559) followed by the subject Ya'aqov ("Jacob", H3290) and the addressee 'el-'avi ("to my father", H0001G with preposition H0413). The reported speech itself begins without any linking verb: 'anokhi 'Esav bekhorekha — "I, Esau, your firstborn" — a nominal clause typical of Biblical Hebrew where identity statements do not require a copula. This construction places weight on the pronoun 'anokhi as the point of emphasis.

The following clause, 'asiti ka'asher dibbarta 'elay ("I have done as you spoke to me"), uses the qal perfect 'asiti (H6213A) for the speaker's own action and the piel perfect dibbarta ("you spoke", H1696G) for the father's prior instruction, with the piel here conveying the emphatic/verbal act of speaking rather than simple utterance.

The imperatives qum-na shevah ("arise, please, sit") and ve'akhlah ("and eat") each carry the paragogic he (H9012), a suffix that adds emphasis to the command without changing its grammatical mood. The final clause states the purpose: ba'avur tevarakheni nafshekha ("in order that your nefesh may bless me"), where the grammatical subject performing the blessing is nefesh ("self/soul", H5315I), not a plain second-person "you" — a nuance not visible in translations that render it simply as "you may bless me."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the subject of the sentence as "ὁ υἱὸς αὐτοῦ" ("his son") speaking to "τῷ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ" ("his father"), rather than naming Ya'aqov ("Jacob", H3290) as the Hebrew and the Vulgate ("Dixitque Jacob") do. The Hebrew's copula-less identity clause 'anokhi 'Esav bekhorekha is rendered in the LXX with an implied "εἰμί" ("Ἐγὼ Ἠσαὺ ὁ πρωτότοκός σου") and in the Vulgate explicitly with "Ego sum... Esau," both supplying a verb "to be" absent from the Hebrew construction.