Genesis 30:36

Summary

The verse describes Laban establishing a physical separation of three days' travel between himself and Jacob, while Jacob continued tending the portion of Laban's flock that remained with him.

Key words

• va-yaSem ("and he put", H7760A) — qal narrative verb; the vav-consecutive form advances the story, marking this as the next sequential action after the flock division described earlier.
• Derekh ("journey of", H1870L) — construct noun; grammatically bound to what follows, producing the phrase "a journey of three days," a set expression for distance rather than literal travel time.
• beino ("between himself", H0996G + H9033) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, anchoring one end of the spatial separation to Laban.
• ro'Eh ("was pasturing", H7462B) — qal participle, masculine singular; participles in Hebrew narrative often mark simultaneous or ongoing background action, here contrasting with Laban's completed act of departure.
• ha-notaRot ("which remained", H3498) — niphal participle, feminine plural, with definite article; the niphal stem indicates the flock's passive state of "having been left/remaining" after the earlier separation, agreeing in gender/number with tzon ("flock of", H6629G).

What the text says

The clause opens with va-yaSem ("and he put", H7760A), a qal narrative verb whose subject is Laban (continuing from the prior verse). Its object is the construct chain Derekh sheLoshet yaMim ("a journey of three [days]"), a standard Hebrew idiom for expressing distance by travel-time rather than a fixed measure. The two poles of this separation are marked by parallel construct-plus-preposition phrases: beino ("between himself", H0996G+H9033) referring back to Laban, and u-Vein Ya'aKov ("and between Jacob", H0996G+H3290), joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002).

The second half of the verse shifts subject with ve-Ya'aKov ("and Jacob", H9002+H3290), followed by the participle ro'Eh ("pasturing", H7462B). The use of a participle rather than a finite verb signals a state of ongoing activity, contrasting with Laban's single completed action of establishing distance. The object is tzon LaVan ("flock of Laban", H6629G+H3837A), further specified by the niphal participle ha-notaRot ("which remained", H3498), feminine plural to agree with tzon. The niphal form conveys that this flock is the one left over or remaining — passively resulting from an earlier division — rather than a flock Jacob actively set aside.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) renders Ya'aKov not by name in the second clause but as generum ("son-in-law"), replacing the personal name found in the Hebrew, LXX, and other versions with a relational title. The LXX (ἀπέστησεν, "he removed/set apart") and the Hebrew va-yaSem ("he put") differ slightly in verb choice, though both describe the same act of establishing distance.