Genesis 35:21

Summary

The verse narrates two consecutive actions of Israel (Jacob): he sets out on a journey and pitches his tent at a location described as beyond a place called Migdal-Eder. The sentence is a simple narrative sequence with no additional description of motive or duration.

Key words

• yissa ("he set out", H5265) — qal wayyiqtol form; the narrative vav prefix marks this as the first event in the sequence, with Israel as subject.
• yet ("he pitched", H5186) — qal wayyiqtol form, the second sequential action, linked by the same narrative vav pattern ("and then he pitched").
• 'ohel ("tent", H0168G) — masculine singular noun in construct state, bound to the following pronominal suffix.
• -o ("his", H9023) — pronominal suffix attached to 'ohel, producing "his tent" as a single bound phrase.
• hal'ah ("beyond", H1973) — adverb combined with the preposition me ("from"), forming the compound expression "from beyond," which situates the tent relative to the named place.

What the text says

The verse is built from two wayyiqtol clauses joined by the narrative vav (va, H9001), a construction typical of Hebrew narrative that presents actions as a chronological chain: "and he set out... and he pitched." The subject Yisra'el ("Israel", H3478) governs both verbs, though it is stated only once, before the first verb; the second verb continues with an implied same subject.

The object of the second verb is not a bare noun but a construct chain: 'ohel ("tent") plus the suffix -o ("his"), meaning "his tent." This possessed noun is followed by a spatial expression, me-hal'ah ("from beyond"), and then by the preposition le ("to") attached to the place name Migdal-'Eder. The combination of "from beyond" with "to" before the place name is a Hebrew idiom for describing a position on the far side of a location, which most translations render simply as "beyond X" rather than reproducing both prepositions literally. The place name itself is a construct pair, migdal ("tower") governing 'Eder ("Eder"), so the location is literally "the tower of Eder."

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders Migdal-'Eder as "Turrem gregis" ("Tower of the flock"), translating the second element as a common noun rather than treating it as part of a proper name, unlike the Hebrew, which the RV1909 preserves by transliterating the whole phrase as "Migdaleder." The BSB and SBLIBRE instead keep "Eder" as a proper name while translating migdal as "Tower," producing "Tower of Eder" and "Migdal Eder" respectively. The Septuagint text supplied here does not correspond to the Hebrew of this verse; its content (concerning Reuben and Bilhah) matches material found in the following verse of the Hebrew text, so no direct Greek rendering of this specific clause is available for comparison in the data given.