Genesis 29:30

Summary

The verse states that Jacob also went in to Rachel, that he loved Rachel more than Leah, and that he served Laban an additional seven years. The three clauses are joined by narrative vav forms, presenting a sequence of connected actions.

Key words

• va-yavo ("and he went", H0935G) — qal narrative verb; the prefixed vav marks it as the next event in the story sequence, following directly from the preceding verses about Leah.
• gam ("also", H1571) — adverb appearing twice (positions 3 and 8), marking both Rachel's inclusion after Leah and the repetition of the love-verb's object, emphasizing addition/repetition rather than exclusivity.
• va-ye'ehav ("and he loved", H0157G) — qal narrative verb; same narrative-chain form as va-yavo, presenting the loving as a sequential fact, not a state described independently of the story's timeline.
• mi-Le'ah ("more than Leah", H3812 with prefix H9006) — the preposition min attached to "Leah" expresses comparison ("more than"), the standard Hebrew construction for comparative statements.
• achErot ("other/another", H0312) — feminine plural adjective modifying shanim ("years", H8141); agrees in gender and number with "years," specifying these seven years as additional ones beyond the first seven already served.

What the text says

The Hebrew presents three consecutive narrative-verb clauses (va-yavo, va-ye'ehav, va-ya'avod), each opening with the narrative vav that signals sequential storytelling: first the going-in to Rachel, then the loving of Rachel "more than Leah," then the serving of "another seven years." The particle gam ("also") appears twice — once attached to the preposition before Rachel's name (gam el-Rachel) and once attached to the object marker before Rachel's name again (gam-et-Rachel) — underscoring that these actions parallel what was previously done regarding Leah, without asserting exclusivity.

The comparative construction mi-Le'ah ("more than Leah") uses the preposition min directly attached to the name, the standard Hebrew way of expressing "more than X." The final clause specifies the duration with od ("again/still", H5750), the numeral sheva' ("seven", H7651), the noun shanim ("years", H8141, masculine plural), and the adjective acherot ("other", H0312, feminine plural) agreeing with shanim despite the noun's masculine form — a common gender-discordance pattern with this particular plural noun in Hebrew.

Differences between versions

The LXX omits an explicit rendering of gam ("also") before Rachel's name in the first clause, opening simply with "and he went in to Rachel" (καὶ εἰσῆλθεν πρὸς Ραχήλ). The Vulgate similarly does not render gam lexically but reflects the sense through "Tandemque potitus optatis nuptiis" ("having finally obtained the desired marriage"), a paraphrase rather than a word-for-word rendering of the Hebrew verbs bo ("to go/come", H0935G) and gam.