Genesis 30:42

Summary

The verse concludes the account of Jacob's selective breeding technique: when the flock was in a weakened condition, Jacob did not set out the marked rods, with the result that the weaker animals went to Laban while the stronger ones went to Jacob.

Key words

• ha'atif ("was feeble", H5848C) — hiphil infinitive construct, used with the preposition ve ("when") to mark a temporal clause describing the condition of the flock during breeding.
• tzon ("sheep/flock", H6629G) — the subject of the temporal clause, referring to the animals as a collective.
• yasim ("he put", H7760H) — qal imperfect, expressing an action Jacob customarily did not perform under this condition (paired with the negation lo', H3808).
• atufim ("enfeebled ones", H5848C) — from the same root as ha'atif, here in plural form functioning as the group assigned to Laban.
• qeshurim ("vigorous ones", H7194) — qal passive participle from a root meaning "to bind"; describes the animals assigned to Jacob, in contrast to the atufim.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as two linked clauses joined by the narrative ve ("and"). The first clause uses the temporal construction u-ve-ha'atif ha-tzon ("and when the flock was feeble/weakened") followed by the negated verb lo' yasim ("he did not put"), leaving the object of "putting" unstated in this verse but implied from the wider passage (the striped rods mentioned earlier in the chapter). The second clause, introduced by the sequential ve-hayah ("and it was"), establishes a distribution: the atufim ("enfeebled ones") belonged to Laban, while the qeshurim ("vigorous ones," literally "bound ones," from a root meaning "to tie") belonged to Jacob. The repetition of the root H5848C in both ha'atif and atufim creates a wordplay linking the condition of the flock to the outcome of the division, a nuance that is lost when each occurrence is translated as a separate concept ("weak" vs. "feeble").

Differences between versions

The LXX diverges notably from the Hebrew: instead of describing the flock as "feeble" (ha'atif), it reads ἡνίκα ἔτεκον τὰ πρόβατα ("when the sheep bore young"), shifting the sense from physical weakness to the timing of birth. Correspondingly, the LXX contrasts τὰ ἄσημα ("the unmarked ones," for Laban) with τὰ ἐπίσημα ("the marked ones," for Jacob) — a distinction based on markings rather than strength or vigor as in the Hebrew atufim/qeshurim. The Vulgate follows a third pattern, rendering the division in temporal terms: serotina ("the late-born") for Laban and quae primi temporis ("those of the first/early time") for Jacob, differing from both the Hebrew's strength-based contrast and the LXX's marking-based contrast.