Genesis 29:6

Summary

Jacob asks Laban's shepherds about the well-being of Laban, referred to only by the pronoun "them," and they answer with a single word, "peace/well-being." The narrator then shifts to a vivid present scene: Rachel, Laban's daughter, is seen arriving with the flock.

Key words

• sha.Lom ("health/peace", H7965I) — appears twice, once with interrogative ha attached (v.6) as a bare noun functioning as the predicate of a verbless question, "[is there] shalom to him?", and once alone as the terse nominal answer "shalom."
• ha ("¿", H9008) — interrogative particle prefixed directly to shalom, turning the noun into a yes/no question without any verb "to be."
• hi.Neh ("there!", H2009) — interjection introducing the following clause, marking a sudden shift of attention to what is happening in real time.
• bi.T...o ("daughter...his", H1323G + H9023) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, "his daughter," identifying Rachel's relation to Laban immediately before she is named as arriving.
• ba.'Ah ("coming", H0935G) — qal participle, feminine singular, describing Rachel's action as ongoing/in-progress rather than as a completed past event.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence has no verb "to be" in the question ha-shalom lo — literally "[is there] shalom to-him?" — a common Biblical Hebrew construction where a state or condition is expressed through a preposition of possession (lo, "to him") rather than a copula. The answer mirrors this economy: shalom, a single noun with no verb, functioning as a complete reply. This construction does not specify whether the concern is physical health, safety, or general prosperity — shalom covers a broad semantic range in Hebrew that English "health" or "peace" only partially render.

The clause introduced by ve-hinneh ("and behold") shifts the narrative mode: rather than reporting an event as a discrete past action, the participle ba'ah ("coming") presents Rachel's arrival as an unfolding scene witnessed in real time, as if the narrator (or Jacob) is watching it happen. The construct phrase bittô ("his daughter") ties Rachel to Laban syntactically before naming her role, reinforcing the identification already established by her personal name Rachel immediately preceding it.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the question and answer with the verb Ὑγιαίνει ("Is he in good health? / He is in good health"), narrowing shalom's broader sense to physical health; the Vulgate similarly uses Sanusne est? / Valet ("Is he sound? / He is well"), following the same health-focused reading. The LXX text as given also adds an explanatory clause, "αὐτὴ γὰρ ἔβοσκεν τὰ πρόβατα τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῆς" ("for she was pasturing her father's sheep"), which has no corresponding words in the Hebrew of this verse.