Genesis 29:1

Summary

The verse narrates a transition in Jacob's journey: he lifts his feet and travels toward the land of the people of the east. It functions as a narrative marker opening a new episode in the story.

Key words

• va-yiSa' ("and he lifted up", H5375) — qal verb with narrative vav, marking sequential action; the idiom "to lift the feet" denotes departure or resuming travel.
• ragLav ("his feet", H7272) — feminine dual noun in construct with the pronominal suffix -o ("his"), forming the idiomatic phrase for setting out on foot.
• va-yeLekh ("and he went", H1980) — qal verb with narrative vav, the second verb in the sequence, indicating movement following the lifting of the feet.
• artza ("[the] land of", H0776) — feminine singular noun in construct, with directional he suffix ("toward"), indicating the goal of motion.
• benei-Qedem ("people of the east", H1121/H6924) — construct chain: masculine plural "sons/people of" + "east", identifying the destination region by its inhabitants.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence uses two sequential verbs joined by the narrative vav construction: va-yiSa' ("and he lifted up") followed by va-yeLekh ("and he went"). This doubling is a Hebrew idiom — literally "he lifted his feet and he went" — which conveys resumption of travel after a pause in the narrative, rather than two separate physical actions. The subject Ya'aqov ("Jacob", H3290) appears once, governing both verbs.

The destination is expressed through a construct chain: artza ("land of") carries a directional he ending (rule 9) meaning "toward," attached to benei-qedem ("sons of the east" or "people of the east"), itself a construct pairing of benei ("sons/people of") and qedem ("east"). This layered construct structure — land + people + east — identifies the geographic goal not by a proper toponym but by the ethnic/directional designation of its inhabitants.

Differences between versions

The LXX expands the verse considerably, adding "Laban the son of Bathouel the Syrian, brother of Rebecca, mother of Jacob and Esau" — information not present in the Hebrew text of this verse. The Vulgate renders the idiom more simply as "Profectus ergo Jacob" ("Jacob therefore having set out"), collapsing the two-verb Hebrew construction into a single participial phrase and translating benei-qedem as "terram orientalem" ("the eastern land") without preserving the "sons/people of" construct element. The Hebrew's dual verb idiom (lifted his feet... and went) is not reproduced literally in either the LXX (single verb exaras, "having lifted up") or the Vulgate (single participle profectus, "having set out").