Genesis 31:40

Summary

Jacob describes the harsh conditions he endured while working for Laban: heat consuming him during the day and frost at night, to the point that sleep departed from his eyes. This is part of Jacob's defense of his twenty years of labor.

Key words

• acha.La.ni ("it consumed me", H0398) — qal perfect verb with 1st person pronominal suffix ni ("me", H9030); the completed action is directed at the speaker as object.
• Cho.rev ("heat", H2721A) — masculine singular noun, subject of the verb "consumed"; paired with Ke.rach ("frost", H7140) to form a day/night contrast.
• ti.Dad ("it fled", H5074) — qal narrative (vav-consecutive) verb, feminine form agreeing with the feminine subject she.na.T ("sleep", H8142); narrative vav marks this as a continuation of the sequence.
• she.na.T-i ("my sleep", H8142 + H9020) — construct noun with 1st person suffix, showing possession.
• 'ei.Na-i ("my eyes", H5869A + H9020) — dual feminine construct noun with 1st person suffix; the dual form marks a natural pair (the two eyes).

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel clauses joined by narrative structure. In the first clause, Cho.rev ("heat") and Ke.rach ("frost") are grammatical subjects, each acting on the speaker: heat during ba.i.Yom ("in the day", H3117G) and frost ba.La.ye.lah ("in the night", H3915). The verb acha.La.ni ("it consumed me") is singular, agreeing with Cho.rev as the nearest subject, while Ke.rach is joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002) without a repeated verb — a common construction in Biblical Hebrew where one verb governs two coordinated subjects.

The second clause shifts to a vav-consecutive construction with va.ti.Dad ("and it fled", H5074), continuing the narrative sequence. The subject here is she.na.ti ("my sleep"), feminine singular, matching the feminine verb form. The phrase me.'ei.na.i ("from my eyes", H5869A) uses the dual form of "eyes," reflecting the grammatical pairing typical for body parts that occur in twos. The overall structure builds a temporal contrast (day/night) followed by a physical consequence (loss of sleep), all narrated in first person by the speaker.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Cho.rev ("heat") and Ke.rach ("frost") using participial and dative constructions (συγκαιόμενος τῷ καύσωνι, "being burned by the heat"), differing stylistically from the Hebrew's simple subject-verb structure, though the semantic content (heat by day, frost by night) is preserved. The Vulgate's æstu urebar ("I was burned by heat") similarly shifts the verb to a passive form applied to the speaker, rather than the Hebrew's active verb with heat/frost as grammatical subjects.