Genesis 46:18

אֵלֶּה בְּנֵי זִלְפָּה אֲשֶׁר־נָתַן לָבָן לְלֵאָה בִתּוֹ וַתֵּלֶד אֶת־אֵלֶּה לְיַעֲקֹב שֵׁשׁ עֶשְׂרֵה נָֽפֶשׁ׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

אֵ֚לֶּה בְּנֵ֣י זִלְפָּ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־נָתַ֥ן לָבָ֖ן לְלֵאָ֣ה בִתּ֑וֹ וַתֵּ֤לֶד אֶת־אֵ֙לֶּה֙ לְיַעֲקֹ֔ב שֵׁ֥שׁ עֶשְׂרֵ֖ה נָֽפֶשׁ׃

Greek (Septuagint)

οὗτοι υἱοὶ Ζέλφας, ἢν ἔδωκεν Λαβὰν Λείᾳ τῇ θυγατρὶ αὐτοῦ, ἣ ἔτεκεν τούτους τῷ Ἰακώβ, δέκα

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

Latin (Vulgate)

Hi filii Zelphæ, quam dedit Laban Liæ filiæ suæ: et hos genuit Jacob sedecim animas.

Spanish

Éstos fueron los hijos que Zilpá le dio a Jacob (Zilpá era la sirvienta que Labán le había regalado a su hija Lea). En total fueron dieciséis personas.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Estos fueron los hijos de Zilpa, la que Labán dió á su hija Lea, y parió estos á Jacob; todas diez y seis almas.

English

These are the sons of Jacob born to Zilpah—whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah—sixteen in all. The Children of Rachel

✦ What the text says

Summary

Genesis 46:18 closes the list of Zilpah's descendants who accompanied Jacob into Egypt, identifying Zilpah as the maidservant Laban gave to his daughter Leah, and stating that she bore these descendants to Jacob, numbering sixteen persons in total.

Key words

'Elleh ("these", H0428) — demonstrative particle framing the verse at both start and near the end (word 14), bracketing the list of names that precedes and confirming it is these individuals being counted.
beNei ("sons of", H1121A) — masculine plural construct form, linking directly to Zilpah; the construct state means it cannot stand alone and requires the following name to complete its meaning ("sons of Zilpah").
naTan ("he had given", H5414G) — qal perfect, third person masculine singular, expressing a completed action prior to the main narrative flow; it explains the origin of Zilpah's status as Leah's servant.
Teled ("she bore", H3205) — qal verb in the narrative (vav-consecutive) form, third person feminine singular; this form advances the storyline as a sequential event ("and then she bore"), distinct from the perfect used for the earlier background fact about Laban.
nafesh ("person", H5315J) — feminine singular noun used here in a collective/counting sense together with the numeral shesh 'esreh ("sixteen", H8337/H6240), both in construct form, to total the persons named.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure separates two temporal layers through verb form: the qal perfect naTan ("he had given") describes a prior, completed event — Laban's earlier gift of Zilpah to Leah — while the vav-consecutive Teled ("and she bore") continues the main narrative chain describing Zilpah's childbearing to Jacob. This shift lets the verse insert background information (Zilpah's origin as Leah's maidservant) as a relative clause introduced by 'asher ("whom", H0834A) without breaking the story's forward movement.

The verse closes with a numeral construction, shesh 'esreh nafesh ("sixteen persons"), both numeral elements in construct form modifying nafesh, a singular noun used collectively to total the individuals listed. The demonstrative 'elleh ("these") appears twice, first identifying the sons of Zilpah as a category, and second (with the object marker 'et) marking them as the direct object of "she bore," reinforcing that the persons just listed are the same ones being counted.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate's sedecim ("sixteen") and the Hebrew shesh 'esreh ("sixteen") agree numerically. The LXX text as given ends with deka ("ten"), a number differing from the Hebrew total of sixteen persons; the provided LXX excerpt does not include the full numeral phrase found in the Hebrew and Vulgate.

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