Genesis 29:3

Summary

Genesis 29:3 describes the customary procedure at the well: once all the flocks had gathered there, the stone covering the well's mouth was rolled away, the sheep were watered, and the stone was returned to its place. The verse uses four consecutive verbs describing this as a recurring practice rather than a single event.

Key words

• ne'esfu ("they were gathered", H0622) — niphal (passive) sequential perfect; the flocks are the grammatical subject of a passive action, not an agent performing it.
• galalu ("they rolled", H1556) — qal sequential perfect; simple active verb, subject unspecified in the Hebrew (no explicit "shepherds").
• hishku ("they watered", H8248) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; literally "they caused [the sheep] to drink."
• heshivu ("they put back", H7725) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; literally "they caused [the stone] to return" to its place.
• limqomah ("to its place", H4725 + H9024) — construct noun with feminine pronominal suffix "her/its," referring back to ha'even ("the stone"), a feminine noun.

What the text says

The verse chains four verbs together using the vav-consecutive (sequential) perfect construction: ne'esfu, galalu, hishku, heshivu. In Biblical Hebrew narrative, this chain typically marks sequential past events ("and then... and then..."), but in a context like this—describing a recurring practice at the well rather than a single dated occurrence—the same verb forms carry an iterative or habitual sense: "they would gather... they would roll... they would water... they would put back." The Hebrew grammar does not mark this habituality with a separate word; it is inferred from context and from the fact that Jacob is being told how things normally work at this well, immediately before the narrative resumes with a single, non-habitual event (his own rolling of the stone in v.10).

No explicit subject such as "shepherds" appears in the Hebrew for any of these four verbs; the third-person plural verb forms leave the agents implicit, understood from the surrounding conversation with the shepherds Jacob has just addressed.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the four Hebrew sequential perfects with Greek imperfect-tense verbs (συνήγοντο, ἀπεκύλιον, ἐπότιζον, ἀπεκαθίστων), a tense that in Greek naturally expresses ongoing or habitual past action, aligning with the iterative sense of the Hebrew construction.

The Vulgate adds an explanatory clause not present in the Hebrew text, "Morisque erat" ("and it was the custom"), making explicit the habitual nature that the Hebrew conveys only through verb form and context.

The BSB and SBLIBRE translations insert an explicit subject, "the shepherds," and use "would" (BSB) or descriptive imperfect tense (SBLIBRE: "quitaban," "volvían") to render this same habitual sense, where the Hebrew subject remains grammatically unstated.