Genesis 34:29
וְאֶת־כָּל־חֵילָם וְאֶת־כָּל־טַפָּם וְאֶת־נְשֵׁיהֶם שָׁבוּ וַיָּבֹזּוּ וְאֵת כָּל־אֲשֶׁר בַּבָּֽיִת׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְאֶת־כָּל־חֵילָ֤ם וְאֶת־כָּל־טַפָּם֙ וְאֶת־נְשֵׁיהֶ֔ם שָׁב֖וּ וַיָּבֹ֑זּוּ וְאֵ֖ת כָּל־אֲשֶׁ֥ר בַּבָּֽיִת׃
καὶ πάντα τὰ σώματα καὶ πᾶσαν τὴν ἀποσκευὴν αὐτῶν καὶ τὰς γυναῖκας αὐτῶν ἀν’· καὶ διήρπασαν ὅσα τε ἦν ἐν τῇ πόλει καὶ ὅσα ἦν ἐν ταῖς οἰκίαις.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
parvulos quoque eorum et uxores duxerunt captivas.
Se llevaron todas sus riquezas y saquearon todo lo que había en las casas, llevándose prisioneros a los niños y a las mujeres.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y toda su hacienda; se llevaron cautivos á todos sus niños y sus mujeres, y robaron todo lo que había en casa.
They carried off all their possessions and women and children, and they plundered everything in their houses.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse lists what Simeon and Levi seized after attacking Shechem: their wealth, their children, and their wives were taken captive, and everything in the house was plundered. The Hebrew presents four objects marked by 'et (H0853) governed by two verbs, shavu ("they took captive", H7617) and vayavozu ("and they plundered", H0962).
Key words
- chayil ("wealth", H2428H) — masculine singular construct with pronominal suffix "their," forming "all the wealth of them"; denotes movable property or resources.
- taph ("little one(s)", H2945) — masculine singular construct (collective sense), "all the little ones of them," referring to children as a group.
- nashim ("wives", H0802H) — masculine plural construct (irregular form for a feminine noun), "the wives of them."
- shavu ("they took captive", H7617) — qal perfect, 3rd person plural, marking a completed action, referring to the taking of persons (wives, little ones) as captives.
- vayavozu ("and they plundered", H0962) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive), continuing the story line, referring to the seizure of goods/property (chayil, house contents).
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence stacks three direct objects — chayil ("wealth"), taph ("little ones"), and nashim ("wives") — each introduced by the object marker 'et (H0853) and each in construct with the suffix "their" (H9028). These three objects are governed together by the verb shavu ("they took captive", H7617), a qal perfect that presents the action as completed. The narrative then shifts with vayavozu ("and they plundered", H0962), a vav-consecutive form that advances the sequence of events, introducing a further object: kol 'asher ba-bayit ("all that was in the house"), built with the relative particle 'asher ("that", H0834A) and the preposition-plus-article form ba- ("in the", H9003) attached to bayit ("house", H1004M).
The grammar groups persons (wealth, children, wives) under one verb of capture and goods inside the house under a second verb of plunder, though the Hebrew does not explicitly separate "wealth" as belonging only to the first verb — the construct chains simply list what was seized, and the two verbs (shavu, vayavozu) together cover all four objects.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders chayil ("wealth", H2428H) as σώματα ("bodies"), differing from the Hebrew sense of "wealth/property," and adds ὅσα ἦν ἐν τῇ πόλει ("whatever was in the city"), an object not present in the Hebrew, which mentions only "the house" (bayit, H1004M). The Vulgate (VULCLEM) omits chayil ("wealth") entirely and does not render vayavozu ("they plundered") or the final clause about "all that was in the house," presenting only the capture of taph ("little ones") and nashim ("wives").
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.