Genesis 33:3

Summary

Genesis 33:3 describes Jacob (referred to as "he") moving ahead of his household to face Esau, bowing to the ground seven times as he approaches his brother. The verse marks the physical gesture of prostration performed multiple times before the two brothers meet.

Key words

• 'a.Var ("he passed on", H5674A) — qal perfect, a completed action denoting Jacob's forward movement ahead of the group mentioned in the prior clause.
• i.yish.Ta.chu ("he bowed down", H7812) — hishtaphel narrative form, introduced by the narrative vav that chains this action sequentially to the previous one ("and then he bowed down").
• 'ar.tza ("[the] ground", H0776H) — feminine singular noun with a directional he suffix, indicating motion toward the ground ("groundward"), reinforcing the downward direction of the bow.
• She.va' / pe.'a.Mim ("seven" / "times", H7651/H6471) — cardinal number plus plural noun, together specifying the exact count of prostrations.
• gish.T ("drew near", H5066G) — qal infinitive construct, taking the pronominal suffix o ("his") to form "until his drawing near," a verbal-noun construction expressing the temporal limit of the bowing action.

What the text says

The verse opens with the independent pronoun Hu' ("he", H1931) placed before the verb 'a.Var, a construction that draws attention to the subject — Jacob is singled out from the group as the one who moves ahead. The perfect form of 'a.Var presents this as a completed, prior action, setting the scene before the narrative continues with the vav-consecutive verb i.yish.Ta.chu, which sequences the bowing as the next event in the story.

The phrase 'ar.tza uses a directional he rather than a preposition, a grammatical feature of Biblical Hebrew that indicates motion toward a place without a separate preposition — literally "ground-ward." The bowing is quantified by She.va' pe.'a.Mim, "seven times," placed immediately after the directional phrase, specifying repetition rather than a single gesture.

The final clause uses two occurrences of 'ad ("until"/"to", H5704), first governing the infinitive construct gish.T with its suffix ("until his drawing near"), then governing 'a.Chi ("brother", H0251G) with the third-person suffix ("to his brother"). The infinitive construct with a pronominal subject suffix is a common Hebrew way of expressing a subordinate temporal clause equivalent to "until he drew near."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders i.yish.Ta.chu + 'ar.tza as simply προσεκύνησεν ("he did obeisance") without a separate word corresponding to 'ar.tza ("toward the ground"), while the Vulgate makes this explicit with "adoravit pronus in terram" ("he worshiped, prone, to the ground"), adding "pronus" not present as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew. The Hebrew 'a.Var ("he passed on/crossed") is rendered by the LXX as παρῆλθεν ("he passed by/went past"), while the Vulgate uses "progrediens" ("advancing"), and modern translations such as BSB render it as "went on ahead," each choosing a slightly different nuance for the same verb.