Genesis 32:21

Summary

The verse reports that the minchah ("gift/tribute", H4503H) that Jacob sent ahead crossed over ahead of Esau, while Jacob himself remained that night in the camp. The Hebrew grammar marks a completed action for the gift's movement, contrasted with an ongoing state (staying the night) for Jacob.

Key words

• ta'avor ("it passed on", H5674A) — qal narrative (wayyiqtol) form, third person feminine singular, agreeing with the feminine noun minchah. It signals a single completed action in the story sequence: the gift crossed over.
• ha-minchah ("the gift", H4503H) — definite feminine singular noun. The definite article ties it back to the tribute Jacob had prepared, treating it as a known, specific quantity moving as one unit toward Esau.
• panav ("his face", H6440G) — masculine plural noun in construct with a pronominal suffix ("his"). The construction al-panav ("upon his face") is an idiom meaning "ahead of him" or "in front of him," referring to Esau.
• lan ("staying the night", H3885A) — qal participle, masculine singular. Unlike the finite verb ta'avor, the participle describes an ongoing or characteristic state rather than a punctual event: Jacob "was staying/lodging."
• ba-laylah ha-hu ("in that night", H3915) — definite noun with demonstrative pronoun hu ("that", H1931), anchoring the participle's action to a specific, previously established night.

What the text says

The sentence is built on a contrast in verbal aspect. The clause about the gift uses ta'avor, a finite qal verb in the narrative chain (wayyiqtol), which reports a discrete, completed movement: the minchah "passed on" or "crossed over" ahead. The clause about Jacob, introduced by the independent pronoun hu ("he", H1931) for emphasis, uses instead the participle lan, which frames his staying overnight as a state rather than a single event. This grammatical shift lets the Hebrew present two simultaneous but different kinds of action: the gift's movement is depicted as advancing forward, while Jacob's presence in the camp is depicted as static, holding position during "that night" (ba-laylah ha-hu).

The phrase al-panav ("on his face," i.e., "ahead of him") locates the gift spatially relative to the unnamed "him" — grammatically anchored by the third-person suffix on panav, whose referent (Esau) is understood from the preceding narrative context, not restated explicitly in this verse.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the singular collective ha-minchah ("the gift") as the plural τὰ δῶρα ("the gifts"), and the Vulgate similarly uses the plural munera ("gifts"), where the Hebrew has one definite singular noun. Additionally, the LXX verb προεπορεύοντο is an imperfect form ("were going before"), expressing continuous action, whereas the Hebrew ta'avor is a single perfective narrative verb ("it passed on"). The Vulgate's præcesserunt ("they went before," perfect tense) aligns more closely with the Hebrew's completed-action sense, despite also pluralizing the noun.