Genesis 30:3

Summary

Rachel (identified by context, not named in this Hebrew clause) tells someone to go in to her maidservant Bilhah so that Bilhah may bear children on her knees, and so that she herself may be "built up" through her. The verse expresses a surrogate childbearing arrangement using the physical idiom of birth "upon the knees."

Key words

• hinneh ("here!", H2009) — interjection drawing attention, introducing the maidservant as the solution being offered.
• bo' ("go", H0935G) — qal imperative, a direct command addressed to a male ("you" masculine), directing the action toward Bilhah.
• teled ("she may bear children", H3205) — qal imperfect with vav, expressing purpose or result following the imperative: "so that she may bear."
• birkay ("knees", H1290+H9020) — feminine dual construct noun with 1st-person suffix, "my knees," the physical site named for the birth.
• ibbaneh ("I may be built up", H1129) — niphal (passive/reflexive) imperfect with vav, "and let me be built," describing the speaker's own outcome through Bilhah's childbearing.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence chain is built through successive vav-linked verbs: va-tomer ("and she said") opens direct speech, followed by the imperative bo' eleiha ("go in to her") addressed to a second party, and then two purpose/result clauses joined by ve-: ve-teled ("and she may bear") and ve-ibbaneh ("and I may be built"). This creates a logical sequence — the command leads to the maidservant's bearing, which leads to the speaker's "building."

The phrase al birkay ("upon my knees", H1290+H9020) is a physical idiom naming a bodily posture associated with recognition or claiming of the child at birth, rather than a metaphor supplied by the translator. The verb ibbaneh (H1129, niphal of the root meaning "to build") is grammatically passive/reflexive: the speaker states that she herself will "be built," a verb form built on the same consonantal root as "son" (ben) elsewhere in Biblical Hebrew, though the text here does not comment on that connection — it simply uses the niphal verb.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew clause va-tomer ("and she said") does not name the speaker or addressee. The LXX supplies both: "εἶπεν δὲ Ῥαχὴλ τῷ Ἰακώβ" ("Rachel said to Jacob"), making explicit what the Hebrew leaves to be inferred from context. The Vulgate similarly does not add the names but uses "At illa" ("But she").

Regarding ibbaneh ("I may be built up", H1129), the Vulgate renders it as "habeam... filios" ("I may have sons"), the LXX as "τεκνοποιήσωμαι" ("I may produce children"), and modern versions like BSB use "build a family" — all shifting away from the literal passive "be built" toward explicit language of childbearing.