Genesis 32:24

Summary

The verse states that Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until dawn rose. Both main actions — Jacob's being left alone and the wrestling itself — are expressed in the Hebrew niphal verbal form, which conveys passivity or reciprocity.

Key words

• yivvater ("he remained/was left", H3498) — niphal (passive) verb: Jacob does not act; he "is left" alone, the action happening to him.
• levaddo ("to his aloneness/alone", H0905H + H9033) — construct noun bad ("part/separateness") with 3ms suffix, forming the idiom "by himself."
• ye'avek ("he wrestled", H0079) — niphal verb, same passive/reflexive stem as yivvater; niphal here carries a reciprocal sense fitting for a mutual physical struggle.
• ish ("a man", H0376G) — indefinite masculine singular noun; the text names him simply "a man," with no article, title, or further identification.
• alot hashachar ("the rising of the dawn", H5927L + H7837) — infinitive construct + definite noun, literally "the going-up of the dawn," marking the temporal endpoint of the struggle.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built from two clauses joined by narrative vav, each opening with a niphal verb: vayivvater ("and he was left/remained") and vaye'avek ("and he wrestled"). The niphal stem in both cases removes emphasis from Jacob as sole grammatical agent — he "is left" rather than "stays," and the wrestling verb, built on the same passive-reflexive pattern, suggests a mutual engagement rather than a one-sided act by either party. The phrase levaddo ("to his aloneness") uses the noun bad, meaning "part" or "separate portion," in construct with the suffix "his," an idiomatic way to express "alone" — literally "in his separateness." The clause ends with a temporal infinitive construct, ad alot hashachar, literally "until the going up of the dawn," a common Biblical Hebrew way of marking duration through a verbal-noun phrase rather than a simple noun for "morning."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the two Hebrew clauses as a single flowing sentence, using δὲ ("but/and") instead of a repeated vav, and translates levaddo with the adjective μόνος ("alone") rather than reproducing the construct-noun idiom. Notably, the Greek text as given lacks an explicit verb for "wrestled," presenting only "and with him a man," where the Hebrew has a distinct verb ye'avek. The LXX also gives ἕως πρωί ("until morning") where the Hebrew has the more specific infinitive construct phrase "until the rising of the dawn." The Vulgate adds ecce ("behold"), a word with no counterpart in the Hebrew text, and uses the imperfect luctabatur ("was wrestling"), presenting the struggle as an ongoing action rather than following the Hebrew's narrative vav-consecutive sequencing.