Genesis 28:9

Summary

The verse narrates that Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath — identified through a chain of genealogical relations — as an additional wife, alongside the wives he already had. The sentence closes the account of Esau's marriages introduced in the surrounding narrative.

Key words

• yeYelekh ("he went", H1980G) — qal narrative form, marking the first sequential action: "and then he went."
• yiqqach ("he took", H3947I) — qal narrative form, the second sequential action, standard verb for "taking" a wife in marriage contexts.
• bat- ("daughter of", H1323G) — feminine singular construct, opening a genealogical chain that identifies Mahalath.
• ben- ("son of", H1121A) — masculine singular construct, continuing the chain: Ishmael, son of Abraham.
• 'al- ("to/in addition to", H5921A) — preposition governing "his wives," indicating Mahalath is added to an existing set of wives rather than replacing them.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as two sequential narrative actions joined by the vav consecutive: va-yeshalekh ("and he went") and va-yiqqach ("and he took"), both qal forms with Esau as subject. After the second verb, the direct object 'et-Machalat ("Mahalath") is expanded by a stacked construct chain: bat-Yishma'el ("daughter of Ishmael"), ben-Avraham ("son of Abraham"), 'achot Nevayot ("sister of Nebaioth"). Each construct noun (bat-, ben-, 'achot) links directly to the next proper name without any independent preposition, a typical Hebrew way of building genealogical identification in a single unbroken phrase.

The final clause, 'al-nashav lo le-'ishah ("to/in addition to his wives, for himself, as a wife"), uses the preposition 'al- attached to nashav ("his wives," a construct plural noun with pronominal suffix) to indicate that Mahalath is added onto an existing group of wives. The phrase lo le-'ishah ("for himself, as a wife") doubles the indication of purpose: lo ("for himself") and le-'ishah ("as/for a wife") reinforce that this is a marriage action directed at Esau's own household, not a general transaction.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders 'al-nashav ("to/in addition to his wives") with absque iis quas prius habebat ("apart from those he already had"), preserving the sense of addition but restructuring word order so that the wives-clause precedes the name "Maheleth," unlike the Hebrew and the LXX, which place the genealogical chain before the wives-clause. The LXX's πρὸς ταῖς γυναιξὶν αὐτοῦ γυναῖκα mirrors the Hebrew 'al-nashav ... le-'ishah structure closely. The SBLIBRE translation attaches "hijo de Abraham" ("son of Abraham") directly to Ishmael's name early in the sentence, whereas the Hebrew construct chain attaches ben-Avraham ("son of Abraham") to Ishmael only within Mahalath's genealogical identification, not as a separate description of Ishmael when Esau first goes to him.