Genesis 30:23

Summary

Genesis 30:23 narrates that a woman conceived, gave birth to a son, and then spoke, declaring that God had removed her reproach. The verse is structured as a chain of three sequential narrative actions followed by direct speech.

Key words

• Tahar ("she conceived", H2029) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive), marking the first event in the sequence.
• Teled ("she bore", H3205) — qal narrative form, the second event, following directly from conception.
• 'Asaf ("he has removed", H0622) — qal perfect, indicating a completed action prior to or independent of the speech act itself; contrasts with the narrative verbs around it.
• Elohim ("God", H0430G) — masculine plural noun functioning as the grammatical subject of 'Asaf, despite its plural form taking a singular verb.
• cherpati ("my reproach", H2781 + H9020) — feminine singular noun in construct form with a first-person suffix, meaning "reproach of me."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built entirely on the narrative vav chain (va-, H9001), which links three sequential actions: Tahar ("she conceived"), Teled ("she bore"), and To'mer ("she said"). This chain structure presents the events as a continuous, linear sequence — conception, birth, then speech — typical of Biblical Hebrew narrative prose. The subject "she" is not named in this verse itself; it is carried grammatically through the verb forms alone, all conjugated in the third-person feminine singular.

The reported speech shifts grammatical aspect: 'Asaf ("he has removed") is a qal perfect, denoting a completed action, in contrast to the surrounding narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs. This shift marks the transition from narrated action to direct discourse. The subject of 'Asaf is Elohim ("God", H0430G), a morphologically plural noun that here governs a singular verb form, as is standard for this term when referring to a single deity in Biblical Hebrew grammar.

The final phrase, 'et-cherpati ("my reproach"), uses the direct object marker 'et (H0853, untranslated) followed by the construct noun cherpah ("reproach", H2781) with the first-person singular suffix -i ("my", H9020), producing "my reproach" as the direct object of 'Asaf.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text does not name the speaker or the father in this verse; the subject is conveyed only through verb conjugation. The LXX (Swete) explicitly inserts the proper names Ἰακὼβ ("Jacob") as the one who fathers the son and Ραχήλ ("Rachel") as the speaker, information not present in the Hebrew of this verse. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew more closely in this respect, using the relative pronoun "Quæ" ("she who") rather than naming the subject.