Genesis 29:12
וַיַּגֵּד יַעֲקֹב לְרָחֵל כִּי אֲחִי אָבִיהָ הוּא וְכִי בֶן־רִבְקָה הוּא וַתָּרָץ וַתַּגֵּד לְאָבִֽיהָ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיַּגֵּ֨ד יַעֲקֹ֜ב לְרָחֵ֗ל כִּ֣י אֲחִ֤י אָבִ֙יהָ֙ ה֔וּא וְכִ֥י בֶן־רִבְקָ֖ה ה֑וּא וַתָּ֖רָץ וַתַּגֵּ֥ד לְאָבִֽיהָ׃
καὶ ἀνήγγειλεν τῇ Ῥαχὴλ ὅτι ἀδελφὸς τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῆς ἐστίν, καὶ ὅτι υἱὸς ’ ἐστίν· καὶ δραμοῦσα ἀπήγγειλεν τῷ πατρὶ αὐτῆς κατὰ τὰ ῥήματα ταῦτα.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
et indicavit ei quod frater esset patris sui, et filius Rebeccæ: at illa festinans nuntiavit patri suo.
Jacob le contó a Raquel que él era pariente de su padre y que era hijo de Rebeca. Entonces ella corrió a contárselo a su padre.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y Jacob dijo á Rachêl como él era hermano de su padre, y como era hijo de Rebeca: y ella corrió, y dió las nuevas á su padre.
He told Rachel that he was Rebekah ’s son, a relative of her father, and she ran and told her father.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Jacob tells Rachel two facts about his identity: that he is a kinsman of her father and the son of Rebekah. Rachel then runs to report this to her father Laban. The verse frames Jacob's speech and Rachel's reaction using two occurrences of the same reporting verb.
Key words
- yaged ("he told", H5046) — hiphil (causative) form of the root נגד, narrative wayyiqtol; Jacob is the causative subject of the telling.
- achi ("[the] relative of", H0251H) — masculine singular construct noun, literally "brother of," here used in construct with avi to express kinship, not necessarily a literal sibling relationship.
- avi ("father", H0001G) — masculine singular construct noun with third-person feminine suffix ha ("her"), forming "her father."
- hu ("he", H1931) — independent personal pronoun, repeated twice, emphasizing the subject ("he [is]...he [is]") in each clause introduced by ki.
- tatzarots / ta.rotz ("she ran", H7323G) — qal narrative wayyiqtol, third feminine singular; marks the transition to Rachel's action.
- tagged ("she told", H5046) — hiphil narrative wayyiqtol, same root as yaged, now with Rachel as subject, creating a structural echo of the opening verb.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence is built on two parallel clauses introduced by ki ("that", H3588A), each stating a kinship claim with the independent pronoun hu ("he", H1931) placed at the end for emphasis: "that a relative of her father [is] he" and "that a son of Rebekah [is] he." The construct chain achi avi-ha ("relative of her-father") uses the noun ach (H0251H) in its broader Semitic sense of "kinsman," not strictly "brother" — a nuance relevant because Jacob is Rebekah's nephew, not literally Laban's brother.
The verse opens and closes with the same causative verb root נגד (H5046): yaged ("he told") when Jacob speaks to Rachel, and tagged ("she told") when Rachel speaks to her father. This repetition, invisible in most translations that render them as "told" and "told," creates a structural symmetry in the Hebrew text: the news travels from Jacob to Rachel to Laban through the same verbal action, transmitted in a chain of telling.
Differences between versions
The BSB renders achi avi-ha as "relative of her father," while the Hebrew literally reads "brother of her father" — the English introduces an interpretive gloss not present in the construct phrase itself, though the underlying Hebrew term ach (H0251H) does carry this broader kinship sense. The LXX (Swete) text shows a lacuna at the point where "son of" should specify "Rebekah," reading only "υἱὸς...ἐστίν" ("he is a son...") without the expected genitive. The Vulgate preserves both kinship terms as in the Hebrew, rendering "frater...patris sui, et filius Rebeccæ" ("brother of his father, and son of Rebecca").
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.