Genesis 33:16

Summary

The verse reports that on that same day, Esau turned back and went on his own way toward Seir. It marks the closing of the narrative episode of the meeting between Jacob and Esau.

Key words

• va-yyaShav ("and he returned", H7725G) — qal verb with narrative vav, marking the next sequential event in the story: Esau's departure.
• ba-yYom ha-Hu ("on that day", H3117G / H1931) — noun with preposition and article, followed by the demonstrative pronoun "that," anchoring the action to the specific day of the preceding encounter.
• 'eSav ("Esau", H6215G) — proper name, subject of the verb yaShav.
• le-darK-o ("to his way", H1870K) — noun in construct form with preposition le ("to") and pronominal suffix "his," indicating the destination or direction of the returning.
• se'Ira-h ("to Seir", H8165A) — place name with directional he suffix, reinforcing the sense of "toward" already carried by the construct phrase.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative verb va-yyaShav ("and he returned," H7725G), placing the action first, before the subject 'eSav ("Esau," H6215G) is named — a common word order in Biblical Hebrew narrative where the verb precedes the subject. The temporal phrase ba-yYom ha-Hu ("on that day," H3117G/H1931) is inserted between the verb and the subject, tying the event tightly to the timeframe of the preceding narrative (the meeting between Jacob and Esau).

The destination is expressed twice in the Hebrew: first through the construct phrase le-darK-o ("to his way," H1870K plus suffix), and then through the place name se'Ira-h ("to Seir," H8165A) marked with the directional he suffix. This double marking — "to his way" followed by "Seirward" — gives the phrase a layered sense of direction: Esau moves toward his own path, and that path leads to Seir. The directional he on se'Ira-h is a suffix that by itself conveys motion toward a place, functioning similarly to a preposition "to/toward," without requiring a separate preposition word in the Hebrew, unlike Esau's own "way" which is introduced by the preposition le.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Ἠσαὺ ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ) places the subject Ἠσαὺ before the temporal phrase, differing from the Hebrew's verb-first order, though this reflects normal Greek syntax rather than a change in meaning. The Vulgate renders the destination phrase as "itinere quo venerat" ("by the way he had come"), an interpretive addition not explicitly present in the Hebrew le-darK-o ("to his way"), which does not specify that this was the way by which Esau had originally arrived.