Genesis 27:32

Summary

Isaac asks the person before him "who are you?", and the speaker identifies himself as Esau, using the double phrase "your son, your firstborn." The verse is built entirely from two short question-and-answer exchanges connected by the narrative verb "he said."

Key words

• va-yo'mer ("and he said", H0559) — the qal narrative verb form, repeated twice (positions 2 and 11), marking each turn of the dialogue with the standard "and X said" narrative construction.
• mi ("who?", H4310) — interrogative pronoun opening Isaac's question, combined with 'atah ("you", H0859A) to form the direct question "who are you?"
• 'ani ("I", H0589) — independent personal pronoun opening the answer; its presence is grammatically emphatic, since Hebrew verbs already encode person and an extra pronoun highlights the subject.
• bin-kha ("son of you" / "your son", H1121A + H9021) — construct noun ben with pronominal suffix, meaning literally "son-of-you."
• bekhor-kha ("firstborn of you" / "your firstborn", H1060 + H9021) — construct noun bekhor with the same suffix pattern, placed in apposition right after bin-kha.

What the text says

The verse divides into two short speech units joined by va ("and", H9001), each introduced by va-yo'mer ("and he said", H0559). The first unit is Isaac's question: mi 'atah ("who [are] you?"), a minimal two-word interrogative clause with no verb "to be" — Hebrew expresses the copula through juxtaposition of the interrogative pronoun and the personal pronoun.

The answer follows the same economy of grammar: 'ani binkha vekhorkha 'Esav ("I, your son, your firstborn, Esau"). Here 'ani ("I", H0589) is not strictly required since the identity is unpacked through nouns, but its presence gives weight to the self-identification. The two construct nouns ben ("son", H1121A) and bekhor ("firstborn", H1060) both carry the second-person suffix -kha ("your", H9021), producing a stacked apposition: "son-of-you, firstborn-of-you" — before the proper name 'Esav ("Esau", H6215G) closes the sentence, naming the speaker last rather than first.

Differences between versions

The LXX and Vulgate render the Hebrew's two appositional phrases binkha ("your son") and bekhorkha ("your firstborn") as a single noun phrase: Greek ho huios sou ho prōtotokos ("the son of you, the firstborn") and Latin filius tuus primogenitus ("your firstborn son"), both placing "Esau" as a final identifying tag, similar to the Hebrew word order. The BSB and SBLIBRE translations move "Esau" earlier in the English/Spanish sentence ("I am Esau, your firstborn son" / "Soy tu hijo mayor, Esaú"), altering the sequence found in the Hebrew, where the proper name 'Esav appears only at the very end of the clause.