Genesis 32:13

Summary

The verse narrates that the subject (Jacob, understood from context) spent the night at that location, then took from what was available to him a gift intended for his brother Esau. The action moves from resting to selecting material for a subsequent transaction.

Key words

• vayyalen ("he stayed [the] night", H3885A) — qal narrative form marking sequential action: "and then he lodged."
• vayyiqqach ("he took", H3947G) — qal narrative form continuing the sequence: "and then he took."
• haba ("came", H0935P) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing something in an ongoing state ("the one coming/being present"), combined with beyado below into an idiomatic phrase.
• beyado ("in his hand", H3027K + H9023) — construct noun "hand of" plus possessive suffix "his," forming with haba the expression "what was at his hand."
• minchah ("a gift", H4503H) — feminine singular noun, the object selected for transfer.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence chains two narrative-vav verbs: vayyalen ("he lodged") and vayyiqqach ("he took"), both qal forms that advance the story in sequence — first rest, then action. The phrase min-haba beyado (literally "from the one/that coming in his hand") is a Hebrew idiom denoting possessions currently on hand or available to the subject; the participle haba ("coming/being present") combined with the construct yad ("hand") plus suffix does not describe physical movement but rather availability or possession. This idiom is difficult to render literally in translation, since "coming in his hand" has no direct grammatical parallel in Greek, Latin, or English syntax.

The final clause specifies the purpose and recipient: minchah le-Esav achiv — "a gift for Esau his brother," where achiv uses the construct form "brother of" plus the pronominal suffix "his," marking direct kinship relation to the referent already established in context.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the idiom as ὧν ἔφερεν δῶρα ("of what he was carrying, gifts"), replacing the "hand" idiom with a verb of carrying, and adds καὶ ἐξαπέστειλεν ("and he sent"), an action not present in this Hebrew clause. The Vulgate uses separavit de his quæ habebat ("he separated from what he had"), substituting "separated" for "took" and generalizing "what was at hand" to "what he had," losing the specific idiomatic reference to the hand. The English and Spanish versions vary: BSB's "what he had brought with him" and RV1909's "lo que le vino á la mano" ("what came to his hand") reflect different strategies for handling the same Hebrew idiom.