Genesis 30:10

Summary

The verse reports the birth of a son to Jacob through Zilpah, identified as Leah's maidservant. The Hebrew sentence is a brief narrative notice consisting of a single verb of birth followed by the names of the parties involved.

Key words

• va-Teled ("and she bore", H3205) — qal verb in narrative (vayyiqtol) form, marking the next event in the sequence of the story; the subject "she" refers to Zilpah, named immediately after.
• Zilpah (H2153) — proper name, feminine, identifying the woman who gives birth.
• shifChat ("maidservant of", H8198) — feminine singular noun in construct state, linking Zilpah to Leah as her servant; the construct form ties the two names into a single possessive phrase ("maidservant of Leah").
• le-Ya'aKo ("to Jacob", H3290) — proper name with prefixed preposition le (H9005), marking Jacob as the one to whom the son is born (dative-like function).
• Ben ("a son", H1121A) — masculine singular noun, the direct object of the birth, placed at the end of the clause.

What the text says

The Hebrew clause follows the typical birth-notice pattern found elsewhere in Genesis: verb + subject + (identifying phrase) + prepositional phrase + object. The narrative vav prefixed to Teled (H9001 + H3205) connects this event to the preceding narrative, signaling continuity in the sequence of Jacob's children being born. The verb form itself already encodes both the action ("bore") and person/gender agreement with the subject that follows.

The subject Zilpah (H2153) is immediately qualified by the construct phrase shifChat Le'Ah ("maidservant of Leah", H8198 + H3812), which grammatically subordinates Zilpah's identity to her relationship with Leah. This construct chain is a single grammatical unit in Hebrew, not two separate words, meaning the text presents Zilpah's identity and her status as Leah's servant as inseparable in this sentence.

The phrase le-Ya'aKo uses the preposition le (H9005) to indicate the beneficiary or recipient of the birth — Jacob is not the grammatical subject of the verb but the one "to" whom the son is born. The final word, Ben (H1121A), stands alone as the object, without further qualification (no ordinal number or name is given in this verse for the child).

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) adds material not present in the Hebrew: it opens with "εἰσῆλθεν δὲ πρὸς αὐτὴν Ἰακώβ" ("And Jacob went in to her"), a clause describing marital relations that has no corresponding words in the Hebrew text of this verse. The Hebrew moves directly from the previous context to the birth notice, while the LXX inserts this additional narrative step before recording the conception and birth.