Genesis 29:23
וַיְהִי בָעֶרֶב וַיִּקַּח אֶת־לֵאָה בִתּוֹ וַיָּבֵא אֹתָהּ אֵלָיו וַיָּבֹא אֵלֶֽיהָ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיְהִ֣י בָעֶ֔רֶב וַיִּקַּח֙ אֶת־לֵאָ֣ה בִתּ֔וֹ וַיָּבֵ֥א אֹתָ֖הּ אֵלָ֑יו וַיָּבֹ֖א אֵלֶֽיהָ׃
καὶ ἐγένετο ἑσπέρα· καὶ λαβὼν Λείαν τὴν θυγατέρα αὐτοῦ εἰσήγαγεν αὐτὴν πρὸς Ἰακώβ, καὶ εἰσῆλθεν πρὸς αὐτὴν Ἰακώβ.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Et vespere Liam filiam suam introduxit ad eum,
Pero al anochecer, Labán tomó a su hija Lea y se la entregó a Jacob, y Jacob tuvo relaciones con ella.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y sucedió que á la noche tomó á Lea su hija, y se la trajo: y él entró á ella.
But when evening came, Laban took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and he slept with her.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse narrates that at evening someone (understood from context as Laban) took Leah, his daughter, and brought her to Jacob, after which Jacob went in to her. The Hebrew subject of the main verbs is left unstated by name — only pronominal suffixes ("him," "her") indicate the participants.
Key words
- yi.Kach ("he took", H3947G) — qal narrative verb; introduces the sequential action of taking Leah, with no named subject in the Hebrew clause itself.
- vi.T + o ("daughter" + "his", H1323G / H9023) — feminine singular noun in construct with a possessive suffix, identifying Leah as "his daughter" (the antecedent of "his" is not stated in this verse).
- ya.Ve' ("he brought", H0935P) — hiphil (causative) narrative form of the root also seen in ya.Vo'; the causative stem marks the action of causing Leah to be brought to Jacob.
- ya.Vo' ("he went", H0935G) — qal (simple) narrative form of the same root as ya.Ve'; here it marks Jacob's own act of going in to her, contrasting with the causative act of bringing her.
- 'e.La / 'e.Lei.ha ("to him" / "to her", H0413 + suffixes) — the preposition with pronominal suffixes carries the entire indication of who receives Leah and toward whom Jacob then goes, since no proper names appear in these clauses.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of four narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs: va-yehi ("and it was"), va-yiqqach ("and he took"), va-yave ("and he brought"), and va-yavo ("and he went"). Each verb is marked with the narrative vav, producing the typical "and then... and then..." sequence of Biblical Hebrew storytelling. Notably, the subject of "he took" and "he brought" is not named in this verse — it is carried only by the verb's third-person masculine singular form and must be supplied from the surrounding narrative context, since the Hebrew text itself contains no proper noun for the agent in these two clauses.
The pair ya.Ve' (hiphil, "he brought") and ya.Vo' (qal, "he went") share the same triliteral root (H0935) but differ in stem: the hiphil is causative, describing one party causing Leah to arrive at the recipient, while the qal describes the recipient's own subsequent movement "into her." This morphological pairing on the same root marks a shift in agency between the two final clauses of the verse.
Differences between versions
The LXX and Vulgate supply proper names where the Hebrew uses only pronouns: the LXX renders the final clause as "Jacob went in to her" (πρὸς αὐτὴν Ἰακώβ), naming Jacob explicitly, and earlier states the object is brought πρὸς Ἰακώβ ("to Jacob"), whereas the Hebrew has only 'e.La ("to him"). The English versions (BSB, RV1909) likewise insert "Laban" and "Jacob" by name for clarity, though these names are not present in the Hebrew wording of this verse itself.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.