Genesis 38:8

Summary

Judah instructs his son Onan to have sexual relations with his deceased brother's widow, fulfilling the duty of a brother-in-law, in order to produce offspring on behalf of the dead brother. The verse is structured as a direct command with three consecutive imperatives.

Key words

• bo' ("go", H0935G) — qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular; a direct command of entry/approach, here used with the preposition 'el ("into") + "the wife of your brother."
• yabem ("act as a husband's brother for", H2992) — piel imperative; the piel (intensive) stem marks this as a specific legal-technical act, the levirate duty, rather than a simple action.
• 'otah ("her", H0853 + H9034) — direct object marker with pronominal suffix, formally marking the woman as the direct object of the preceding verb yabem.
• haqem ("raise up", H6965I) — hiphil imperative; the hiphil (causative) stem indicates causing offspring to exist/stand, rather than simply "having" them.
• zera' ("offspring", H2233H) — masculine singular noun, the object of haqem, denoting seed/progeny in a collective, singular grammatical form.

What the text says

The verse is built on a chain of three imperative verbs addressed by Judah to Onan: bo' ("go"), yabem ("act as brother-in-law"), and haqem ("raise up"), each connected by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002). This creates a sequence of commands rather than a single unified instruction: first physical approach to the woman, then performance of the levirate function, then the resulting causative act of establishing offspring.

The construct chains 'eshet 'achikha ("wife of your brother", H0802H + H0251G + H9021) and le-'achikha ("for your brother", H0251G + H9021) frame the woman and the future offspring both in relation to the dead brother, not to Onan himself. The repetition of 'achikha ("your brother") at the start and end of the verse brackets the entire command, grammatically reinforcing that Onan's role is instrumental — the woman is identified as belonging to the brother, and the goal (zera', "offspring") is likewise directed toward the brother's line via the hiphil verb haqem, which frames Onan as the causing agent of an outcome that benefits another party.

The piel verb yabem is a technical term used only in this legal context of a surviving brother's duty toward a widow; its intensive/factitive form in Biblical Hebrew grammar marks it as a defined legal action rather than a general verb of relationship.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yabem as gambreusai ("to become brother-in-law to," a denominative verb built on "brother-in-law"), paralleling the Hebrew's technical sense. The Vulgate renders the same verb with sociare ("to join/associate with her"), a more general term of union, without a specific legal-technical marker equivalent to the Hebrew piel form. The BSB and SBLIBRE both render yabem somewhat periphrastically ("perform your duty as her brother-in-law," "cumplir con tu deber de cuñado"), making the levirate function explicit where the Hebrew uses a single verb form.