Genesis 38:12

וַיִּרְבּוּ הַיָּמִים וַתָּמָת בַּת־שׁוּעַ אֵֽשֶׁת־יְהוּדָה וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוּדָה וַיַּעַל עַל־גֹּֽזֲזֵי צֹאנוֹ הוּא וְחִירָה רֵעֵהוּ הָעֲדֻלָּמִי תִּמְנָֽתָה׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וַיִּרְבּוּ֙ הַיָּמִ֔ים וַתָּ֖מָת בַּת־שׁ֣וּעַ אֵֽשֶׁת־יְהוּדָ֑ה וַיִּנָּ֣חֶם יְהוּדָ֗ה וַיַּ֜עַל עַל־גֹּֽזֲזֵ֤י צֹאנוֹ֙ ה֗וּא וְחִירָ֛ה רֵעֵ֥הוּ הָעֲדֻלָּמִ֖י תִּמְנָֽתָה׃

Greek (Septuagint)

ἐπληθύνθησαν δὲ αἱ ἡμέραι καὶ ἡμέραι καὶ ἀπέθανεν Σαύα ἡ γυνὴ Ἰούδα· καὶ παρακληθεὶς Ἰούδας ἀνέβη ἐπὶ κείρονταςτὰ πρόβατα αὐτοῦ, αὐτὸς καὶ Εἱρᾶς ὁ ποιμὴν αὐτοῦ ὁ Ὀδολλαμείτης, εἰς Θαμνά.

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

Latin (Vulgate)

Evolutis autem multis diebus, mortua est filia Sue uxor Judæ: qui, post luctum consolatione suscepta, ascendebat ad tonsores ovium suarum, ipse et Hiras opilio gregis Odollamites, in Thamnas.

Spanish

Pasó mucho tiempo y murió la hija de Súa, la esposa de Judá. Cuando Judá terminó de guardar luto, subió a Timnat, junto con su amigo Hira el adulamita, para ver a los que esquilaban sus ovejas.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y pasaron muchos días, y murió la hija de Súa, mujer de Judá; y Judá se consoló, y subía á los trasquiladores de sus ovejas á Timnath, él y su amigo Hira el Adullamita.

English

After a long time Judah ’s wife, the daughter of Shua, died. When Judah had finished mourning, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite went up to his sheepshearers at Timnah.

✦ What the text says

Summary

The verse marks the passage of time and death of Judah's wife (identified as "daughter of Shua"), followed by Judah's comfort and his journey to Timnah for sheep-shearing, accompanied by his friend Hirah the Adullamite.

Key words

yirbu ("they increased", H7235A) — qal narrative verb with ha-yamim ("the days", H3117G) forms the idiom "the days increased," the standard Hebrew way of indicating a long interval of time has passed.
tamat ("she died", H4191) — qal narrative verb; simple, unembellished report of death, third person feminine.
yinnachem ("he was comforted", H5162G) — niphal (passive/reflexive) narrative verb; the niphal stem indicates Judah underwent or experienced comfort, rather than performing an action, without specifying an external agent.
ya'al ("he went up", H5927G) — qal narrative verb describing physical movement toward Timnah, continuing the narrative chain begun by the vav-consecutive forms.
re'ehu ("his friend", H7453 + H9023 suffix) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, identifying Hirah's relationship to Judah as companionship, distinct from an occupational or hierarchical term.

What the text says

The verse is built entirely on a chain of narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs — yirbu, tamat, yinnachem, ya'al — which in Biblical Hebrew signal sequential action: time passed, then she died, then he was comforted, then he went up. This chain creates a compressed narrative rhythm typical of Hebrew storytelling, where extended time (multiple years, in context) is summarized in a single idiomatic phrase, yirbu ha-yamim ("the days increased").

The identification of the wife uses two stacked construct chains: bat-Shua ("daughter of Shua", H1323G construct + H7770) and 'eshet-Yehudah ("wife of Judah", H0802H construct + H3063G). She is named only through her relationships to two men, never by a personal name of her own in the Hebrew.

The niphal form yinnachem is grammatically passive/reflexive, meaning the text presents Judah as having received or entered a state of comfort, without naming an agent — the Hebrew does not specify who or what comforted him, only that the state occurred before he resumed activity (going up to the shearers).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders bat-Shua ("daughter of Shua") as a personal name, "Σαύα" (Saua), treating what the Hebrew presents as a genitive relationship ("daughter of Shua") as if it were the woman's own name — dropping the explicit "daughter of" sense. The Vulgate preserves the relational structure with "filia Sue" ("daughter of Shua"), closer to the Hebrew construct.

For re'ehu ("his friend", H7453), the LXX has "ὁ ποιμὴν αὐτοῦ" ("his shepherd"), a different relational term than the Hebrew's "friend/companion," while the Vulgate's "opilio gregis" ("shepherd of the flock") follows the LXX's shepherd sense rather than the Hebrew's friendship term.

The Vulgate adds "post luctum consolatione suscepta" ("after having received consolation following mourning"), an expanded phrase not present as separate words in the Hebrew, which simply uses the single niphal verb yinnachem.

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