Genesis 31:52

Summary

Jacob declares that the stone heap and the standing pillar serve as witnesses to a mutual boundary agreement with Laban: neither party will cross this marker against the other with hostile intent. The verse uses a double "witness" formula and a reciprocal oath structure.

Key words

• 'ed ("witness", H5707) — masculine noun, agreeing grammatically with the masculine gal ("heap", H1530G).
• 'edah ("witness", H5713A) — feminine noun, agreeing with the feminine matstsevah ("pillar", H4676); the same concept "witness" appears in two grammatical genders to match each physical object.
• 'e'evor / ta'avor ("I will pass beyond" / "you will pass beyond", both H5674A) — qal imperfect forms of the same verb, first in 1st person then in 2nd person masculine, creating a mirrored oath.
• 'im ("if", H0518I) — the conditional particle introducing each half of the oath, structuring the sentence as two parallel negative conditions.
• ra'ah ("harm", H7451C) — feminine noun governed by the preposition le ("for", H9005), stating the purpose the crossing must not serve.

What the text says

The sentence opens with two short nominal clauses lacking an explicit verb "to be": 'ed haGal hazzeh ("[a] witness [is] this heap") and ve'edah hammatsevah ("and [a] witness [is] the pillar"). Hebrew marks agreement between "witness" and its subject by gender: the masculine 'ed pairs with the masculine gal, and the feminine 'edah pairs with the feminine matstsevah. This grammatical pairing is not reproducible in English or Spanish translations, which use "witness" once or twice without gender distinction.

The oath itself is built as two symmetrical conditional clauses, each introduced by 'im ("if") and negated by lo' ("not", H3808), with the same verb 'avor ("to pass beyond") inflected first for "I" ('e'evor) and then for "you" (ta'avor). This mirrors the reciprocal nature of the agreement: neither party permitted to cross toward the other. Both clauses end with the object marker 'et preceding "this heap," and the second clause adds "and this pillar," before the final purpose phrase le-ra'ah ("for harm"), which qualifies the forbidden act of crossing as one done with hostile intent rather than crossing as such.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew presents two distinct witness-nouns ('ed, masculine; 'edah, feminine) tied to gender-matched objects. The Vulgate renders this with a single statement, "testis erit... sint in testimonium," collapsing the double gendered formula into one witness concept for both objects. The provided LXX fragment omits the initial witness clause altogether and begins directly with the conditional oath (ἐάν τε γὰρ...), differing structurally from the Hebrew's opening nominal declarations.