Genesis 33:7

Summary

The verse describes two groups approaching and bowing before someone (contextually, Esau): first Leah with her children, then afterward Joseph and Rachel. Both groups perform the same act of bowing, marked by the verb yishtachavu ("they bowed down", H7812) repeated at the end of each clause.

Key words

• ti.Gash ("she approached", H5066G) — qal narrative form; a simple, direct action verb describing Leah's approach.
• ni.Gash ("he approached", H5066G) — same root as above but in niphal, marked as perfect (completed action); the passive/reflexive stem contrasts grammatically with the qal form used for Leah.
• gam ("also", H1571) — adverb attached to Leah's name, signaling that her approach follows others already mentioned (in the wider narrative context of Genesis 33, the maidservants approached first).
• 'a.Char ("after", H0310A) — temporal marker introducing the second approach, establishing sequence between the two bowing events.
• yishtachavu ("they bowed down", H7812) — hishtaphel narrative form, repeated identically for both groups, marking the shared ritual gesture of bowing.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built in two parallel movements, each following the pattern: approach → bow down. The first movement uses the qal verb ti.Gash for Leah's approach, a straightforward active form. The second movement, introduced by the temporal marker 'a.Char ("after"), uses a different verbal stem for the same root: ni.Gash, a niphal perfect. This stem shift is grammatically notable — the qal and niphal forms of the same root (H5066G, "to approach") appear side by side in this single verse, though both are translated simply as "approached" in English versions. The niphal here does not necessarily carry passive force but marks the action as syntactically distinct from the qal used for Leah.

The repetition of yishtachavu ("they bowed down", H7812) at the end of each clause creates a structural parallelism: two subjects (Leah with her children; Joseph and Rachel), two approaches, two identical bowing actions. The construct form la.Dei ("children of", H3206) with the pronominal suffix -ha ("her") ties the children grammatically to Leah as a single approaching unit.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text names Joseph before Rachel (yoSef ... veRachel) in the second clause. The LXX reverses this order, rendering Ῥαχὴλ καὶ Ἰωσήφ ("Rachel and Joseph"). The Vulgate follows the Hebrew order (Joseph et Rachel) but adds the word extremi ("last" or "at the end"), a term not present in the Hebrew, which explicitly marks this pair as the final group to approach — a nuance the Hebrew conveys only through the sequential marker 'a.Char ("after") rather than a lexical item meaning "last."