Genesis 27:4

Summary

Isaac instructs his son to prepare a savory dish from game, bring it to him, and states the purpose: he wishes to eat it so that his nephesh ("self/soul") may bless the son before his death. The sentence is built as a chain of two imperatives followed by two purpose clauses.

Key words

• 'aseh ("prepare", H6213) — qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular; opens the command sequence.
• mat'ammim ("savory foods", H4303) — masculine plural noun, the object of the preparation, described further by the relative clause that follows.
• havi'ah ("bring", H0935) — hiphil (causative) imperative with a paragogic he ending, which adds emphasis to the command without changing its basic meaning.
• ba'avur ("in order that", H5668) — a construct expression introducing the final purpose clause that governs the rest of the verse.
• naphshi ("my self/soul", H5315) — feminine singular noun in construct form with the 1st person suffix; functions grammatically as the subject of the verb "bless."

What the text says

The verse consists of two paired commands: 'aseh...mat'ammim ("prepare... savory foods") and havi'ah...li ("bring it... to me"), each followed by a first-person verb expressing Isaac's intended action — 'ahavti ("I love", perfect tense, describing an established preference) and 'okhelah ("let me eat", a cohortative-type form marking his own intended result). The paragogic he on havi'ah is a stylistic intensifier attached to the imperative, not a separate grammatical marker of meaning.

The final clause is introduced by ba'avur ("in order that"), governing the piel jussive tevarekh-kha ("she may bless you"), whose grammatical subject is naphshi ("my nephesh"). Because naphshi is grammatically feminine, the verb "bless" appears in a form agreeing with a feminine subject, even though the referent is Isaac himself. The clause ends with be-terem 'amut ("before I die"), where terem ("before") plus the imperfect 'amut ("I will die") frames the entire request within the limit of Isaac's remaining lifetime.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew va-'okhelah ("and let me eat") is rendered in the LXX as ἵνα φάγω ("that I may eat"), turning the cohortative into an explicit purpose clause with ἵνα. The Vulgate similarly uses ut comedam ("that I may eat"), matching the LXX's subordinating structure rather than the paratactic Hebrew phrasing.

Regarding naphshi, both the LXX (ἡ ψυχή μου, "my soul") and the Vulgate (anima mea, "my soul") preserve the grammatical subject literally as "soul/life," matching the Hebrew naphshi. The English BSB shifts this to "I may bless you," collapsing the nephesh-language into a first-person subject not explicit in the Hebrew's construct-noun subject.