Genesis 34:5

וְיַעֲקֹב שָׁמַע כִּי טִמֵּא אֶת־דִּינָה בִתּוֹ וּבָנָיו הָיוּ אֶת־מִקְנֵהוּ בַּשָּׂדֶה וְהֶחֱרִשׁ יַעֲקֹב עַד־בֹּאָֽם׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וְיַעֲקֹ֣ב שָׁמַ֗ע כִּ֤י טִמֵּא֙ אֶת־דִּינָ֣ה בִתּ֔וֹ וּבָנָ֛יו הָי֥וּ אֶת־מִקְנֵ֖הוּ בַּשָּׂדֶ֑ה וְהֶחֱרִ֥שׁ יַעֲקֹ֖ב עַד־בֹּאָֽם׃

Greek (Septuagint)

Ἰακὼβ δὲ ἤκουσεν ὅτι ἐμίανεν ὁ υἱὸς Ἐμμὼρ Δείναν τὴν θυγατέρα αὐτοῦ· οἱ δε υἱοὶ αὐτοῦ ἦσαν μετὰ τῶν κτηνῶν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῶ πεδίῳ· παρεσιώπησεν δὲ Ἰακὼβ ἕως τοῦ ἐλθεῖν αὐτούς.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Quod cum audisset Jacob absentibus filiis, et in pastu pecorum occupatis, siluit donec redirent.

Spanish

Jacob se enteró de que Siquén había deshonrado a su hija Dina. Pero como sus hijos estaban en el campo con el ganado, no dijo nada hasta que ellos regresaron.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y oyó Jacob que había Sichêm amancillado á Dina su hija: y estando sus hijos con su ganado en el campo, calló Jacob hasta que ellos viniesen.

English

Jacob heard that Shechem had defiled his daughter Dinah, but since his sons were with his livestock in the field, he remained silent about it until they returned.

✦ What the text says

Summary

Genesis 34:5 reports that Jacob heard about the defilement of his daughter Dinah. Because his sons were away in the field with the livestock at the time, Jacob remained silent about the matter until their return.

Key words

sha.Ma' ("he heard", H8085G) — qal perfect, marks Jacob's reception of the news as a completed action opening the verse.
ti.Me' ("he had defiled", H2930A) — piel perfect; the piel stem intensifies the verbal action, and the subject of this verb is not named in the Hebrew clause itself.
he.che.Rish ("he kept silent", H2790B) — hiphil sequential perfect (vav-consecutive), a causative-stem verb continuing the narrative chain begun with sha.Ma'.
bo.'A...m ("their coming", H0935G + H9048) — qal infinitive with 3rd person plural suffix, giving a temporal clause "until their coming" rather than a finite verb "until they came."
mik.Ne.hu ("his livestock", H4735) — construct noun with 3rd masculine singular suffix, specifying whose livestock the sons were tending.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure places ya.'a.Ko ("Jacob", H3290) before the verb sha.Ma' ("he heard", H8085G), giving prominence to Jacob as the subject at the start of the narrative unit. The clause introduced by ki ("that", H3588A) contains the piel verb ti.Me' ("he had defiled", H2930A) without an explicit subject noun in this verse — the Hebrew text as given does not name who performed the defiling action within this clause; the referent must be supplied from context outside verse 5. The object is marked by 'et (H0853) followed by di.Nah ("Dinah", H1783) and vi.T-o ("his daughter", H1323G + H9023).

The second half of the verse shifts to the sons' location, using ha.Yu ("they were", H1961) with the preposition 'et ("with", H0854, distinct in form from the object-marker 'et in line 6) to place them "with his livestock" (mik.Ne.hu) "in the field" (ba.sa.Deh). The narrative then resumes Jacob's action with the vav-consecutive ve.he.che.Rish ("and he kept silent", H2790B), a hiphil form. The temporal boundary of this silence is expressed not with a finite verb but with the infinitive bo.'A ("coming", H0935G) plus the suffix -m ("their"), yielding a construction literally rendered "until their coming," which several target-language versions render as a finite clause ("until they returned/came").

Differences between versions

The LXX supplies a subject for the defiling action that is not explicit in the Hebrew clause itself: "ὁ υἱὸς Ἐμμὼρ" ("the son of Hemor"), naming Shechem's paternal line, where the Hebrew of this verse leaves the subject of ti.Me' unstated. The Vulgate's audisset renders the perfect sha.Ma' but restructures the sentence with an ablative absolute ("absentibus filiis... occupatis"), converting the Hebrew's two independent clauses about the sons' location into a subordinate phrase. The RV1909 and BSB, like the LXX, insert "Sichêm"/"Shechem" as the explicit subject of the defiling verb, supplying a name absent from the Hebrew wording of this specific verse.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.