Genesis 31:20

Summary

The verse states that Jacob "stole the heart of" Laban the Aramean — a Hebrew idiom for deception — by not informing him that he was fleeing. The sentence combines a narrative verb of concealment with a subordinate clause explaining what was withheld.

Key words

• va-yignov ("and he stole", H1589) — qal narrative verb; the vav-prefixed form marks this as the next event in the story sequence.
• lev ("heart of", H3820A) — masculine singular construct noun; combined with ganav ("to steal") it forms an idiom, literally "he stole the heart of," used here for concealment/deception rather than literal theft.
• beli ("not", H1097) — a noun functioning adverbially with the preposition 'al ("on/because of"), producing the phrase "on account of not [telling]."
• higgid ("he told", H5046) — hiphil (causative) perfect; the causative stem conveys "causing to know/declaring," negated by the preceding beli.
• voreach ("fleeing", H1272) — qal participle, masculine singular; participles describe ongoing action, so this presents Jacob's flight as a state in progress rather than a completed act.

What the text says

The main clause is built on the verb va-yignov ("and he stole") with Ya'aqov ("Jacob", H3290) as subject and the direct object marked by 'et (H0853) before lev Lavan ha-Arammi ("the heart of Laban the Aramean"). The construct phrase lev Lavan does not describe physical theft of an organ but functions idiomatically — "stealing someone's heart" in this context denotes acting deceptively toward that person, concealing information from them.

The second clause, introduced by 'al-beli higgid lo ("on account of not having told him"), explains the manner of this deception: Jacob's hiphil verb higgid ("he told/declared") is negated by the noun beli ("not"), a less common negator than the ordinary lo. The pronominal suffix -o ("him", H9033) attached to the preposition le indicates Laban as the recipient of the withheld information.

The final clause, ki voreach hu ("that he [was] fleeing"), specifies the content not communicated. The verb here is a qal participle, voreach, rather than a finite verb, which frames the fleeing as a continuous or ongoing action at the time of departure, and the independent pronoun hu' ("he", H1931) reinforces the subject already implied by the participle's gender and number.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew idiom "stole the heart of" with ἔκρυψεν ("he hid/concealed"), naming Laban directly as the one deceived rather than preserving the "heart" imagery. The Vulgate similarly abandons the idiom, using noluit confiteri ("he refused to confess/declare"), framing Jacob's act as a refusal to disclose rather than as "stealing a heart." Both versions convey the same practical outcome — concealment of the flight — but neither retains the literal Hebrew construct phrase involving lev ("heart").