Genesis 34:16

Summary

Genesis 34:16 records a proposed exchange between two groups: giving daughters in marriage and receiving daughters in return, followed by shared dwelling and the formation of a single people. The verse consists of four sequential clauses, each building on the previous one to describe the terms of this intermarriage arrangement.

Key words

• na.Ta.nu ("we will give", H5414O) — qal sequential perfect, first-person plural; continues a narrative sequence, indicating an action that follows logically/temporally from a prior condition.
• ni.kach- ("we will take", H3947G) — qal imperfect, first-person plural; unlike the surrounding perfects, this verb form marks ongoing or future action rather than sequence.
• ya.Shav.nu ("we will dwell", H3427) — qal sequential perfect, first-person plural; continues the chain begun by na.Ta.nu.
• ha.Yi.nu ("we will become", H1961) — qal sequential perfect, first-person plural; closes the sequence, marking the resulting state.
• 'Am 'e.Chad ("a people" H5971A + "one" H0259) — masculine singular noun with cardinal number; the noun 'am takes a masculine singular numeral even though the parallel Vulgate phrase renders "populus" as masculine, while the Hebrew construction places "one" in agreement with "people" as a collective singular.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of four verbs connected by the narrative vav (H9001/H9002), each carrying first-person plural subject markers ("we"). Three of these verbs — na.Ta.nu, ya.Shav.nu, and ha.Yi.nu — are sequential perfects, a Hebrew verbal pattern that strings actions together in a described sequence ("we will give... we will dwell... we will become"). The middle verb, ni.kach- ("we will take"), breaks this pattern by using an imperfect form instead, which the provided grammar notes marks ongoing or future action rather than strict narrative sequence. This shift in verbal form is not visible in most translations, which render all four verbs uniformly as future actions.

The object markers 'et (H0853) appear before be.no.Tei.nu ("our daughters") and be.no.tei.khem ("your daughters"), marking them as direct objects of "give" and "take" respectively, without being translated themselves. The construct forms of be.no.Tei ("daughters of") link the noun to the following pronominal suffixes (-nu "our", -khem "your"), producing the reciprocal structure "our daughters to you" / "your daughters we will take."

Differences between versions

The LXX adds γυναῖκας ("wives") after "we will take," a word not present in the Hebrew text, which only has ni.kach- ("we will take") without specifying "as wives." The Vulgate similarly interprets the exchange with "accipiemus mutuo" ("we will receive in exchange"), adding the notion of mutual exchange not explicit in the Hebrew verb itself. The LXX renders 'Am 'e.Chad ("one people") as γένος ἕν ("one race/kind"), using a different noun than the more common Greek term for "people," while the Hebrew 'am (H5971A) simply denotes "people" or "nation."