Genesis 38:29

Summary

The verse narrates the moment when the twin who had drawn back his hand is preceded by his brother emerging first from the womb. The woman present exclaims about the "breach" he made, and he is named Perez accordingly, with the name deriving directly from her exclamation.

Key words

• meShiv ("[he was] withdrawing", H7725G) — hiphil participle, causative form describing an ongoing action: the hand being actively pulled back, not a completed act.
• yaTza' ("he came out", H3318M) — qal perfect, marking a completed action: the brother's exit is presented as an accomplished fact contrasting with the ongoing withdrawal of H7725G.
• paRatzta ("you have made a breach", H6555) — qal perfect, second person masculine: a direct address using a verb built on the same root as the name that follows.
• Peretz ("a breach", H6556) — masculine singular noun, the common noun used in the woman's exclamation.
• Paretz ("Perez", H6557) — proper name, formally identical in root to H6556, used as the naming term at the close of the verse.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure uses a temporal clause introduced by ke ("when", H9004) attached to the participle meShiv ("withdrawing", H7725G), which sets up a background action in progress. This is interrupted by the exclamatory hinneh ("there!", H2009), marking a sudden narrative turn: the brother yaTza' ("came out", H3318M) using the perfect aspect, indicating the completed emergence contrasts temporally with the incomplete withdrawal.

The woman's speech is introduced by mah ("how!", H4100), functioning here as an exclamatory rather than purely interrogative particle, followed by paRatzta ("you have made a breach", H6555) — a qal perfect verb from the same consonantal root as the noun Peretz ("a breach", H6556) and the resulting name Paretz ("Perez", H6557). The text builds a wordplay: the verb describing the action (breaking through) and the noun describing the result (a breach) share the root that becomes the child's name, so the naming clause yikra' shemo Paretz ("someone called his name Perez") functions as an etymological explanation embedded in the narrative itself.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the woman's exclamation as a question, "Τί διεκόπη διὰ σὲ φραγμός" ("why was the fence broken through because of you?"), shifting from the Hebrew's second-person direct address (paRatzta, "you have made a breach") to a passive construction about the phragmos ("fence/hedge"). The Vulgate similarly renders it as "Quare divisa est... maceria?" ("why was the wall divided?"), also passive and third-person, differing from the Hebrew's active second-person verb form directed at the child.