Genesis 31:33

Summary

The verse narrates Laban's search through the tents of Jacob's household — Jacob's own tent, Leah's tent, and the tent of the two maidservants — finding nothing, then proceeding from Leah's tent to Rachel's tent. The Hebrew presents this as a sequence of entries and one exit, tracking physical movement through the camp.

Key words

• va-yiVo ("and he went/entered", H0935G) — qal narrative verb form, repeated three times (positions 2, 26) to mark successive movement into different tents.
• Ohel ("tent of", H0168G) — masculine singular construct noun, appearing four times, each time governing a following name (Jacob, Leah, the two maidservants, Rachel), forming a chain of "tent of X" constructions.
• sheTei ("two of", H8147) — feminine dual cardinal number in construct state, linking directly to ha-amaHot ("the maidservants", H0519) to specify exactly two female servants.
• matsa ("he found", H4672) — qal perfect verb, negated by lo ("not", H3808), marking the completed but unsuccessful result of the search before the narrative continues.
• va-yeTze ("and he came out", H3318G) — qal narrative verb describing the single exit action, positioned between the negative finding and the final entry into Rachel's tent.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure is built on a chain of narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs: va-yaVo ("and he went," H0935G) opens the verse, followed by three prepositional phrases each built on the construct noun Ohel ("tent of," H0168G) plus a name — Jacob, Leah, and "the two maidservants." These three phrases are joined by simple conjunctions (u-, H9002), suggesting Laban's search covered these locations in one continuous action before the negative result ve-lo matsa ("and he did not find," H3808 + H4672) is stated.

After this negative statement, the grammar shifts: a new narrative verb va-yeTze ("and he came out," H3318G) specifies departure specifically me-Ohel Leah ("from the tent of Leah," H0168G + H3812), even though the tent of Leah was already mentioned earlier as one of several searched. This creates a slight narrative pause — the text singles out Leah's tent as the point of departure — before the final va-yaVo be-Ohel Rachel ("and he went into the tent of Rachel," H0935G + H0168G + H7354) closes the verse. The repeated construct pattern Ohel + proper name (four times) gives the verse a rhythmic, list-like quality in Hebrew that tracks Laban's path tent by tent.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew Ohel ("tent," H0168G) as οἶκον ("house") throughout, and reorders the search sequence: it lists Leah's tent first, then explicitly states the negative finding after that first search (LXX: "εἰσελθὼν... ἠρεύνησεν εἰς τὸν οἶκον Λείας... καὶ οὐχ εὗρεν"), followed by a second search of Jacob's tent and the two maidservants' tent, with the negative finding restated. The Hebrew, by contrast, places all three initial locations (Jacob, Leah, the two maidservants) together before a single instance of lo matsa ("he did not find," H3808+H4672). The Vulgate follows a sequence closer to a single combined search ("tabernaculum Jacob, et Liæ, et utriusque famulæ, non invenit"), then separately narrates entry into Rachel's tent, without the Hebrew's intermediate exit from Leah's tent (va-yeTze me-Ohel Leah) being rendered as a distinct clause.