Genesis 29:18

Summary

The verse reports that Jacob loved Rachel and then made a proposal to her father: he would work seven years in exchange for marrying her, described as "your younger daughter." The two clauses are joined by narrative sequence, moving directly from feeling to speech to bargain.

Key words

• ye'ehav ("he loved", H0157G) — qal narrative form of the verb "to love," marking a new event in the story sequence ("and then he loved").
• e'evodkha ("I will serve you", H5647G) — qal imperfect, first person, with pronominal suffix "you" attached; the imperfect aspect frames the service as ongoing or future, not yet begun.
• sheva shanim ("seven years", H7651/H8141) — cardinal number plus plural noun, stating the fixed duration of the proposed labor.
• bittekha ("your daughter", H1323G) — feminine singular noun in construct state, linking Rachel directly to Laban as "daughter of you."
• haqqetannah ("the young [one]", H6996A) — feminine singular adjective with definite article, describing Rachel's relative age among the daughters.

What the text says

The verse is built from two narrative clauses joined by the vav consecutive: va-ye'ehav ("and he loved") and va-yomer ("and he said"). This chaining structure presents Jacob's love for Rachel and his subsequent proposal as sequential story-beats rather than as cause and effect explicitly marked by a conjunction — the Hebrew simply places one event after the other.

The proposal itself, e'evodkha sheva shanim be-Rachel, uses the preposition be ("for", H9003) attached to "Rachel" to indicate the object of exchange: seven years of service "for" or "in exchange for" Rachel. The imperfect verb e'evodkha indicates that the service has not yet started; Jacob is stating an intention or offer.

The final phrase, bittekha haqqetannah, identifies Rachel as "your daughter, the young one." The adjective qetannah is in the absolute (positive) degree with the definite article, not a comparative form — the Hebrew text does not grammatically mark "younger" as a comparison to an older sister within this construction, though the surrounding narrative context (not present in this verse) supplies that contrast.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders haqqetannah as νεωτέρας ("younger"), a comparative adjective, where the Hebrew has the positive-degree adjective qetannah ("young") with the definite article. The Vulgate similarly uses minore ("younger," comparative ablative), matching the LXX's comparative sense rather than the Hebrew's simple form. Additionally, the LXX repeats "Ῥαχήλ" twice in the final phrase (τῆς θυγατρός σου τῆς Ῥαχήλ, νεωτέρας), a repetition not present in the Hebrew text, which names Rachel only once in that clause.