Genesis 32:22
וַיָּקָם׀ בַּלַּיְלָה הוּא וַיִּקַּח אֶת־שְׁתֵּי נָשָׁיו וְאֶת־שְׁתֵּי שִׁפְחֹתָיו וְאֶת־אַחַד עָשָׂר יְלָדָיו וַֽיַּעֲבֹר אֵת מַעֲבַר יַבֹּֽק׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיָּ֣קָם׀ בַּלַּ֣יְלָה ה֗וּא וַיִּקַּ֞ח אֶת־שְׁתֵּ֤י נָשָׁיו֙ וְאֶת־שְׁתֵּ֣י שִׁפְחֹתָ֔יו וְאֶת־אַחַ֥ד עָשָׂ֖ר יְלָדָ֑יו וַֽיַּעֲבֹ֔ר אֵ֖ת מַעֲבַ֥ר יַבֹּֽק׃
Ἀναστὰς δὲ τὴν νύκτα ἐκείνην ἔλαβεν τὰς δύο γυναῖκας καὶ τὰς δύο καὶ τὰ ἕνδεκα παιδία αὐτοῦ, καὶ διέβη τὴν διάβασιν τοῦ
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Cumque mature surrexisset, tulit duas uxores suas, et totidem famulas cum undecim filiis, et transivit vadum Jaboc.
Pero esa misma noche Jacob se levantó, tomó a sus dos esposas, a sus dos sirvientas y a sus once hijos, y cruzó el vado del río Jaboc.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y levantóse aquella noche, y tomó sus dos mujeres, y sus dos siervas, y sus once hijos, y pasó el vado de Jaboc.
During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Genesis 32:22 narrates that during the night, a man (identified in context as Jacob) got up, gathered his two wives, two maidservants, and eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. The verse is structured as a chain of narrative actions: rising, taking, and crossing.
Key words
- va-yyaqom ("and he rose", H6965B) — qal narrative form, marking the first sequential action of the verse.
- va-yyiqqach ("and he took", H3947G) — qal narrative form, the second sequential action, governing multiple objects marked by 'et (H0853).
- shtei ("two of", H8147) — dual cardinal number in construct state, used twice to introduce both "two wives" and "two maidservants" as paired groups.
- achad 'asar ("one plus ten", H0259 + H6240) — compound cardinal construction meaning "eleven," in construct with yeladav ("his children", H3206).
- va-yya'avor ("and he passed over", H5674A) — qal narrative form, the final action, followed by ma'avar ("ford of", H4569A) in construct with the place name Yabboq ("Jabbok", H2999).
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence is built entirely on narrative vav-forms (H9001), a chain of three qal verbs — va-yyaqom, va-yyiqqach, va-yya'avor — that present the actions as sequential and consequential: he rose, then he took, then he crossed. This chain structure is a common feature of Hebrew narrative prose, linking discrete actions into a continuous storyline without needing additional connecting words beyond the repeated vav.
The object of va-yyiqqach is introduced three times with the direct object marker 'et (H0853), each time followed by a construct phrase using shtei ("two of", H8147) or the compound number achad 'asar ("eleven", H0259+H6240): "two of his wives," "two of his maidservants," "eleven of his children." Each noun — nashav ("his wives", H0802H), shifchotav ("his maidservants", H8198), yeladav ("his sons/children", H3206) — carries the third-person masculine singular pronominal suffix -o (H9023), consistently marking possession by the same subject throughout the list.
The final clause shifts to a different verb, va-yya'avor ("he passed over", H5674A), followed by the construct noun ma'avar ("ford of", H4569A) plus the proper name Yabboq (H2999), specifying the geographic feature crossed.
Differences between versions
The Vulgate renders shifchotav ("his maidservants", H8198) as totidem famulas ("the same number of servants"), which does not explicitly repeat "two" as the Hebrew does with shtei (H8147) but instead implies the number through "the same number." The LXX (Swete) preserves the numerical structure closer to the Hebrew, using τὰς δύο ("the two") for both wives and maidservants, though the second "two" appears without a repeated noun for "maidservants" in the provided LXX text, leaving it slightly elliptical compared to the fuller Hebrew phrasing.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.