Genesis 29:33

Summary

Leah conceives and bears a second son. She explains the name by stating that Yehovah "heard" that she was unloved and therefore gave her this son also. She names him Simeon, a name built on the same root as "to hear."

Key words

• shama' ("he has heard", H8085G) — qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular; describes a completed act of hearing attributed to Yehovah, forming the basis of the naming.
• senu'ah ("hated/unloved", H8130) — qal passive participle, feminine singular; describes Leah's state as one who is (or has been) the object of hatred/lack of love, not an action she performs.
• anokhi ("I", H0595) — independent personal pronoun; emphasizes the subject "I" in the clause "that I [am] hated," reinforcing Leah's self-reference.
• va-yiten ("and he has given", H5414G) — qal narrative form, 3rd person masculine singular; continues the narrative chain, attributing the giving of the son to the subject introduced by shama' (Yehovah).
• shem-o ("his name", H8034 + H9023) — construct noun with pronominal suffix; links directly to Shim'on (H8095G), the name given, built on the consonants of shama'.

What the text says

The verse is structured as a chain of four narrative verbs — tahar ("she conceived", H2029), teled ("she bore", H3205), tomer ("she said", H0559), and tiqra ("she called", H7121H) — each introduced by the narrative va (H9001), which sequences the events one after another. Within Leah's speech, two clauses are introduced by ki (H3588A), a particle that here functions as "that," giving the reason for the naming: first, that Yehovah shama' ("has heard", H8085G) — a qal perfect indicating a completed action; second, that she herself is senu'ah ("hated", H8130), expressed as a passive participle describing her ongoing state rather than an action she initiates. The pronoun anokhi ("I", H0595) is added explicitly, even though Hebrew verbs already encode person, giving emphasis to her own situation as the reason cited.

The naming clause tiqra shem-o Shim'on ("she called his name Simeon") uses shem (H8034) in construct form with the suffix -o ("his"), linking the noun "name" directly to the person named. The name Shim'on (H8095G) shares its root letters with shama' ("to hear"), so the text's own reasoning — that Yehovah "heard" — corresponds to the sound of the name given.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders senu'ah ("hated", H8130) with the verb μισοῦμαι ("I am hated"), matching the passive sense of the Hebrew participle. The Vulgate renders the same clause as "haberi contemptui" ("to be held in contempt"), a slightly different phrasing but consistent with the notion of being disliked or scorned. The LXX condenses the phrase gam et-zeh ("also this one", H1571 + H0853 + H2088) into the shorter "καὶ τοῦτον" ("and this one"), omitting a separate rendering for gam ("also").