Genesis 27:21

Summary

Isaac, unable to visually confirm the identity of the person before him, addresses Jacob and asks him to come near so that he may physically verify through touch whether he is truly his son Esau. The verse contains both Isaac's request and his direct question of doubt.

Key words

• ge.sha ("draw near", H5066G) — qal imperative with paragogic he ה (H9012), which intensifies the command, reinforced further by the interjection na' ("please", H4994), softening the imperative into a polite request.
• 'a.mush ("I may feel", H4184) — qal imperfect prefixed with the conjunction va ("so", H9002), forming a purpose clause: the action of drawing near is directly linked to the goal of physical verification by touch.
• be.ni ("my son", H1121A + H9020) — construct noun with 1st person suffix, appearing twice in the verse (once after the request, once identifying "Esau"), marking Isaac's relational address to the addressee.
• ha ("¿", H9008) — interrogative particle prefixed to 'atah ("[are] you", H0859A), opening a direct yes/no question embedded in the narrative.
• 'im-lo' ("or... not", H0518A + H3808) — a fixed disjunctive construction functioning as "or not", closing the question with an explicit negative alternative.

What the text says

The verse divides into two grammatical units. The first is Isaac's imperative request: ge.sha-na' ("draw near, please") followed by the purpose clause va-'amush-kha ("so I may feel you"), addressed with the vocative beni ("my son"). The paragogic he on the imperative and the particle na' together soften what would otherwise be a bare command, giving it a tone of invitation rather than order.

The second unit is a direct interrogative sentence, marked by the prefixed interrogative ha on the pronoun 'atah ("are you"). The demonstrative zeh ("this") sits between the pronoun and the noun phrase beni 'Esav ("my son Esau"), a construction that in Hebrew narrative syntax marks emphatic identification — literally close to "are you this one, my son Esau." The question is closed with the disjunctive tag 'im-lo' ("or not"), a common Hebrew idiom for posing a yes/no alternative explicitly, rather than leaving the negative implicit as some target languages might.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders beni ("my son", H1121A) in the first clause as τέκνον ("child"), a slightly different address than the literal "my son," though the second occurrence (with Esau) is rendered as ὁ υἱός μου ("my son"). The Vulgate expands the purpose clause into "ut tangam te... et probem" ("so that I may touch you... and test/verify"), adding "probem" ("I may test/prove") as an explanatory element not present as a separate verb in the Hebrew, where the "testing" is implicit in the interrogative sentence itself rather than stated as a separate verb.