Genesis 31:21

Summary

The verse narrates Jacob's flight: he departs with everything belonging to him, rises, crosses "the river," and sets his face toward the hill country of Gilead. The sentence is built as a chain of four consecutive narrative verbs describing successive actions.

Key words

• yivrach ("he fled", H1272) — qal verb with narrative vav, the first action in the sequence, establishing flight as the main event.
• khol 'asher-lo ("all that [belonged] to him", H3605 + H0834A + H9005/H9033) — a relative clause functioning as a noun phrase, meaning "everything that was his," specifying the extent of what accompanies him.
• ya'avor ("he passed over", H5674A) — qal narrative verb describing crossing; takes et-hanahar ("the river", H5104G) as its direct object, marked by the untranslated object marker 'et.
• panav ("his face", H6440L) — masculine plural noun in construct state, used idiomatically with sam ("he set", H7760A) to mean "he turned toward" or "he headed toward."
• har hagil'ad ("hill country of Gilead", H2022H + H1568G) — construct chain naming the destination, "the hill-country of Gilead."

What the text says

The Hebrew presents four verbs joined by the narrative vav construction (va-yiqtol), each advancing the story sequentially: yivrach ("he fled"), yaqom ("he arose", H6965B), ya'avor ("he passed over"), and yasem ("he set"). This chain structure is a common feature of Hebrew narrative prose, where each verb marks a discrete step in temporal sequence rather than simultaneous action.

The phrase hu' ve-khol 'asher-lo ("he and all that was his") uses the relative particle 'asher (H0834A) with a prepositional suffix to form a possessive relative clause — literally "all that [belonged] to him" — indicating the totality of what he takes with him without listing specific items.

The expression yasem et-panav ("he set his face") uses panim ("face", H6440L) in construct with a pronominal suffix, an idiom in which a plural noun functions with a singular sense ("face") to indicate a fixed intention of direction or purpose. Here it introduces the goal of the movement: har hagil'ad, a construct phrase meaning "the hill-country of Gilead," itself in construct relation joining "hill-country" and "Gilead."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text says he crossed hanahar ("the river", H5104G) without naming it. The LXX renders this as τὸν ποταμόν ("the river"), also unnamed, matching the Hebrew. The Vulgate similarly reads amne transmisso ("the river having been crossed"), without a name. However, the BSB translation adds "the Euphrates," a specification not present in the Hebrew, LXX, or Vulgate texts provided.