Genesis 29:24

Summary

The verse reports that Laban gave his maidservant Zilpah to his daughter Leah, to serve as her personal maidservant. The sentence identifies both the giver-recipient relationship (Laban to Leah) and the double role of Zilpah as Laban's servant who becomes Leah's servant.

Key words

• va-yiTen ("and he had given", H5414G) — qal verb with narrative vav, placing this action within the sequence of the wedding narrative.
• shifchaTo ("his maidservant", H8198 + H9023) — feminine singular noun in construct form with a possessive suffix, marking Zilpah as belonging to Laban before the transfer.
• biTo ("his daughter", H1323G + H9023) — feminine singular construct noun with suffix, identifying Leah's relationship to Laban as the recipient of the gift.
• le-Ah ("to Leah", H3812 with prefix H9005) — proper name marked with the preposition le, indicating the direction of the giving.
• shifChah ("a maidservant", H8198) — the same noun repeated at the end, this time without a possessive suffix, describing Zilpah's new function relative to Leah.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure places the verb first (va-yiTen, "and he gave"), followed by the subject Laban, then a preliminary indirect object marker lah ("to her"), and only afterward the direct object et-Zilpah. This produces a doubling: the pronoun lah ("to her") anticipates the referent before le-Leah ("to Leah") is spelled out explicitly later in the verse, a common feature of Biblical Hebrew narrative syntax where a pronominal suffix can precede its full antecedent.

The word shifchah ("maidservant", H8198) appears twice, first in construct form as shifchaTo ("his maidservant") describing Zilpah's status under Laban, and then a second time in absolute form simply as shifChah ("a maidservant") describing the role she now holds for Leah. This repetition marks the transfer of status: the same noun frames both the starting point (belonging to Laban) and the endpoint (function for Leah) of the action.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint (LXX) renders the sentence with a simpler structure, listing Ζέλφαν ("Zelpha") as direct object right after the verb ἔδωκεν ("he gave"), then Λείᾳ τῇ θυγατρὶ αὐτοῦ ("to Leah his daughter"), followed by τὴν παιδίσκην αὐτοῦ αὐτῇ παιδίσκην ("his maidservant, to her as maidservant"), preserving the double occurrence of "maidservant" found in the Hebrew but reordering the elements. The Vulgate (VULCLEM) condenses the verse differently, naming the maidservant "Zelpham" without repeating the term "ancilla" a second time in the same construction, and folds the notice into the surrounding narrative about Jacob's wedding night, whereas the Hebrew verse stands as a self-contained notice about the transfer of Zilpah.