Genesis 29:8
וַיֹּאמְרוּ לֹא נוּכַל עַד אֲשֶׁר יֵאָֽסְפוּ כָּל־הָעֲדָרִים וְגָֽלֲלוּ אֶת־הָאֶבֶן מֵעַל פִּי הַבְּאֵר וְהִשְׁקִינוּ הַצֹּֽאן׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיֹּאמְרוּ֮ לֹ֣א נוּכַל֒ עַ֣ד אֲשֶׁ֤ר יֵאָֽסְפוּ֙ כָּל־הָ֣עֲדָרִ֔ים וְגָֽלֲלוּ֙ אֶת־הָאֶ֔בֶן מֵעַ֖ל פִּ֣י הַבְּאֵ֑ר וְהִשְׁקִ֖ינוּ הַצֹּֽאן׃
οἱ εἶπαν Οὐ δυνησόμεθα ἕως τοῦ συναχθῆναι πάντας τοὺς ποιμένας, καὶ ἀποκυλίσωσι τὸν λίθον ἀπὸ τοῦ στόματος τοῦ Φρέατος, καὶ ποτιοῦμεν τὰ πρόβατα.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Qui responderunt: Non possumus, donec omnia pecora congregentur, et amoveamus lapidem de ore putei, ut adaquemus greges.
Pero ellos dijeron: “No podemos hacerlo hasta que se junten todos los rebaños y quiten la piedra de la boca del pozo. Sólo entonces podremos darles de beber a las ovejas”.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y ellos respondieron: No podemos, hasta que se junten todos los ganados, y remuevan la piedra de sobre la boca del pozo, para que abrevemos las ovejas.
But they replied, “ We cannot, until all the flocks have been gathered and the stone has been rolled away from the mouth of the well. Then we will water the sheep.”
✦ What the text says
Summary
The shepherds explain to Jacob why they cannot yet water the sheep: they must wait until all the flocks are gathered, the stone is rolled from the well's mouth, and only then will the sheep be watered. The verse presents three sequential actions bound together by a single "until" clause.
Key words
- nuKhal ("we are able", H3201) — qal imperfect expressing present modal capacity: "we cannot [do this now]."
- ye'aseFu ("they will be gathered", H0622) — niphal (passive) imperfect; the grammatical subject is kol-ha'adarim ("all the flocks"), so the flocks themselves are gathered, with no agent named.
- galaLu ("they will roll", H1556) — qal verb marked as sequential perfect, continuing the future sense set by ye'aseFu rather than describing a completed past action.
- hishKinu ("we will water", H8248) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect, the final link in the chain of anticipated actions; hiphil stem indicates causing the sheep to drink, not merely drinking.
- 'adaRim ("flocks", H5739) — masculine plural noun, the entity that must be gathered before the well can be opened.
What the text says
The clause is built on 'ad 'asher ("until") followed by the niphal imperfect ye'aseFu, which sets up a future condition. The two verbs that follow, galaLu and hishKinu, are grammatically perfects with prefixed vav, but they function as sequential futures continuing the timeline opened by ye'aseFu — a common construction in Biblical Hebrew narrative where a converted perfect carries forward the modal/temporal sense of a preceding imperfect. This produces a chain: flocks must be gathered → then the stone will be rolled away → then the sheep will be watered, all under the single negation lo' nukhal ("we cannot") until that sequence completes.
Notably, the niphal ye'aseFu is passive and impersonal: the text does not specify who gathers the flocks, only that "all the flocks" (kol-ha'adarim) will be gathered — the flocks are the subject of the passive verb, not the shepherds.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders the gathered entity as "πάντας τοὺς ποιμένας" ("all the shepherds") where the Hebrew has kol-ha'adarim ("all the flocks", H5739). The Vulgate's "omnia pecora" ("all the cattle/flocks") aligns with the Hebrew noun rather than with the LXX's "shepherds." This creates a divergence in what is said to be gathered before the well is opened: the flocks themselves (Hebrew, Vulgate) versus the people tending them (LXX).
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.