Genesis 36:39

Summary

The verse records the death of Baal-hanan son of Achbor and the accession of Hadar as his successor. It then names Hadar's city (Pau) and his wife (Mehetabel), tracing her lineage through her mother Matred to a figure called Me-zahab.

Key words

• va-yamat ("and he died", H4191) — qal narrative form with vav-consecutive, marking the sequential notice of death typical of the succession lists in this chapter.
• ben ("son of", H1121A) — masculine singular construct, linking Baal-hanan to his father Achbor.
• tachtav ("in his place", H8478H + H9033) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, expressing succession ("in place of him").
• shem ("name of", H8034) — masculine singular construct, used twice to introduce first the city, then the wife, by name.
• bat ("daughter of", H1323G) — feminine singular construct, repeated to build a two-generation female genealogy (Mehetabel, daughter of Matred, daughter of Me-zahab).

What the text says

The verse is built entirely on construct chains, a grammatical feature that lets Hebrew stack relationships without extra connecting words. Ben ("son of", H1121A) attaches Achbor to Baal-hanan, while tachtav ("in his place", H8478H) uses a suffixed noun rather than a preposition-plus-pronoun construction to show that Hadar succeeded him directly. The second half of the verse shifts from succession to identification: shem ("name of", H8034) is used twice, once for the city Pa'u and once for the wife Mehetabel, each introduced by a construct noun rather than a finite verb, giving the text a list-like, archival tone rather than a narrated one.

The double use of bat ("daughter of", H1323G) — "bat Matred, bat Me-zahab" — creates a chain that can be read as Mehetabel, daughter of Matred, who is herself daughter of Me-zahab (a maternal genealogy of three generations), or, depending on how the construct chain is parsed, as Mehetabel being daughter of Matred and separately of Me-zahab as a distinct genealogical note. The Hebrew construct syntax itself does not resolve which reading is intended; it simply juxtaposes the two bat phrases.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Baal-hanan as a single transliterated name "Βαλαεννών" and gives Hadar's name as "Ἁρὰθ υἱὸς Βαράθ" ("Arath son of Barath"), adding a patronym not present in the Hebrew, which names only Hadar (הֲדַר) without a father. The Vulgate transliterates the same figure as "Adar," dropping the initial he sound found in the Hebrew Hadar. The city name appears as Pa'u (פָּעוּ) in the Hebrew and Vulgate ("Phau"), but as "Φόγωρ" (Phogor) in the LXX. The wife's name, Mehetabel (מְהֵיטַבְאֵל) in Hebrew, appears as "Μετεβεήλ" in the LXX and "Meetabel" in the Vulgate, minor transliteration variants rather than substantive differences.