Genesis 35:13

Summary

Genesis 35:13 narrates the departure of Elohim ("God", H0430) from Jacob, describing the divine subject as going "up" from a specific location, later identified as the place where the deity had spoken with him earlier in the narrative.

Key words

• yaal ("he went up", H5927) — qal narrative verb form, marking the next event in the story sequence: the divine subject's ascent/departure.
• Elohim ("God", H0430) — grammatically plural noun, functioning here as the explicit subject of the verb yaal.
• me'alav ("from upon him", H5921 + H9033) — preposition with third-person suffix, indicating movement away from a position directly over/upon Jacob, not merely "away from" in a general sense.
• maqom ("place", H4725) — definite noun with article, anchoring the event to a specific, identifiable location.
• diber ("he had spoken", H1696) — piel perfect verb, denoting a completed prior action; it introduces the relative clause that identifies which place is meant.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative vav attached to yaal, continuing the story sequence begun in the surrounding verses. The subject, Elohim, appears explicitly and is grammatically plural, though it governs a singular verb form, consistent with its use elsewhere as a proper name for the deity in this narrative. The preposition me'alav is built from 'al ("upon") plus the preposition min ("from") and a third-person masculine singular suffix, producing a compound sense of "from upon him" — describing the divine figure's position as having been directly over or with Jacob before departing.

The second half of the verse is a relative clause introduced by asher ("where", H0834), modifying maqom. Within this clause, the piel perfect diber marks an action completed before the moment of departure: the speaking had already occurred at that location, and the verse now marks the closing of that event with the subject's ascent from it. The preposition itto ("with him", H0854 + H9033) closes the clause, specifying the addressee of the prior speech as Jacob himself.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text names Elohim explicitly as the subject of yaal, and includes the full relative clause "in the place where he had spoken with him." The Vulgate rendering given ("Et recessit ab eo") is considerably shorter: it lacks an explicit subject noun (continuing the subject from the prior verse) and omits the locative relative clause entirely. The LXX text supplied ("ἀνέβη δὲ ὁ ἀπ' αὐτοῦ ἐκ τοῦ τόπου οὗ ἐλάλησεν μετ' αὐτοῦ") likewise lacks an explicit "θεός" in the clause as transmitted here, rendering the subject only as "ὁ ἀπ' αὐτοῦ" ("he who [went] from him") before continuing with the locative clause corresponding to the Hebrew bammaqom asher-diber itto.