Genesis 28:19

Summary

The verse reports that the unnamed subject (Jacob, per context) gave the name Beit-El ("Bethel") to the place where he had been, and adds a note that the city's earlier name was Luz. The sentence contrasts a new name assigned to a location with its previous, established name.

Key words

• yiqra ("he called", H7121H) — qal verb in narrative form, indicating a single completed act of naming.
• shem ("name of", H8034) — masculine singular noun in construct state, appearing twice (lines 4 and 14), each time linking "name" to what follows ("the place" / "the city").
• ha-hu ("that", H1931) — demonstrative pronoun combined with the definite article on maqom ("place", H4725), specifying a particular, previously mentioned location.
• Beit-El ("Beth-el", H1008G) — proper name composed of two elements, functioning as the new designation given to the place.
• la-rishonah ("in the former [time]", H7223G) — feminine singular ordinal with prepositional prefix, marking a temporal contrast ("formerly" vs. the present naming).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative va-yiqra ("and he called"), a wayyiqtol form that advances the story sequentially, followed by the direct object marker 'et introducing what is named. The phrase shem-ha-maqom ha-hu ("the name of that place") uses the construct chain shem + ha-maqom to specify whose name is being set, while the demonstrative ha-hu ties the statement back to the place already discussed earlier in the chapter. The name given is Beit-El, a compound proper noun.

The second half of the verse is introduced by ve-'ulam ("and but"), an adverb marking contrast, followed by Luz, the earlier name of the city. Here the syntax inverts: Luz stands before shem-ha-'ir ("the name of the city"), placing the old name in emphatic position before restating what it was the name of. The closing phrase la-rishonah ("in the former [time]") uses a feminine ordinal with a prefixed preposition to mark the temporal boundary — before the renaming took place.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint explicitly names the subject as Ἰακὼβ ("Jacob"), where the Hebrew leaves the subject of va-yiqra implicit (marked only by the verb's third-person masculine form). The LXX also renders Beit-El by translation rather than transliteration, giving οἶκος θεοῦ ("house of God"), whereas the Hebrew text simply presents the compound name Beit-El without further explanation, and the Vulgate transliterates it as "Bethel." For Luz, the LXX gives Οὐλαμμαύς, a transliteration differing from the Hebrew Luz (H3870H) and from the Vulgate's "Luza."