Genesis 48:7

וַאֲנִי׀ בְּבֹאִי מִפַּדָּן מֵתָה עָלַי רָחֵל בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן בַּדֶּרֶךְ בְּעוֹד כִּבְרַת־אֶרֶץ לָבֹא אֶפְרָתָה וָאֶקְבְּרֶהָ שָּׁם בְּדֶרֶךְ אֶפְרָת הִוא בֵּית לָֽחֶם׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וַאֲנִ֣י׀ בְּבֹאִ֣י מִפַּדָּ֗ן מֵ֩תָה֩ עָלַ֨י רָחֵ֜ל בְּאֶ֤רֶץ כְּנַ֙עַן֙ בַּדֶּ֔רֶךְ בְּע֥וֹד כִּבְרַת־אֶ֖רֶץ לָבֹ֣א אֶפְרָ֑תָה וָאֶקְבְּרֶ֤הָ שָּׁם֙ בְּדֶ֣רֶךְ אֶפְרָ֔ת הִ֖וא בֵּ֥ית לָֽחֶם׃

Greek (Septuagint)

ἐγὼ δὲ ἡνίκα ἠρχόμην ἐκ Μεσοποταμίας τῆς Συρίας, ἀπέθανεν Ῥαχὴλ ἡ μήτηρ σου ἐν γῇ Χανάαν, ἐγγίζοντός μου κατὰ τὸν ἱππόδρομον χαβραθὰ τῆς γῆς τοῦ ἐλθεῖν Ἐφράθα· καὶ κατώρυξα αὐτὴν ἐν τῇ ὁδῶ τοῦ ἱπποδρόμου· αὕτη ἐστὶν Βεθλέεμ.

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

Latin (Vulgate)

Mihi enim, quando veniebam de Mesopotamia, mortua est Rachel in terra Chanaan in ipso itinere, eratque vernum tempus: et ingrediebar Ephratam, et sepelivi eam juxta viam Ephratæ, quæ alio nomine appellatur Bethlehem.

Spanish

Cuando yo regresaba de Padán Aram, para mi gran dolor, Raquel murió en el camino, en la tierra de Canaán, cuando todavía faltaba un tramo para llegar a Efrata. Y allí la enterré, en el camino hacia Efrata” (es decir, Belén).

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Porque cuando yo venía de Padan-aram, se me murió Rachêl en la tierra de Canaán, en el camino, como media legua de tierra viniendo á Ephrata; y sepultéla allí en el camino de Ephrata, que es Bethlehem.

English

Now as for me, when I was returning from Paddan, to my sorrow Rachel died along the way in the land of Canaan, some distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there beside the road to Ephrath” ( that is, Bethlehem).

✦ What the text says

Summary

Jacob recalls that Rachel died on the journey from Paddan to Canaan, some distance short of Ephrathah, and that he buried her along that road, a place identified as Bethlehem. The verse is framed as a first-person report addressed to Joseph, introducing the burial notice with emphatic self-reference.

Key words

'a.Ni ("I", H0589) — an independent personal pronoun placed before the verbal clause, giving emphasis: "as for me."
be.vo.'i ("in my coming", H9003+H0935G+H9040) — preposition + infinitive + 1st-person suffix, forming a temporal clause, "when I came/was coming," rather than a finite verb.
me.tah ("she died", H4191) — qal perfect, marking Rachel's death as a completed event within the temporal frame set by the infinitive clause.
'al + suffix -ay ("upon me", H5921A+H9030) — the preposition attached to the verb of dying, an idiom that frames the death as happening "upon" Jacob, not merely as a neutral event.
va'eqbereha ("and I buried her", H9001+H6912+H9034) — narrative vav plus qal verb with 3rd-feminine-singular suffix, continuing the first-person narrative sequence begun by meta.

What the text says

The clause opens with the independent pronoun 'a.Ni ("I", H0589) before any verb, a fronting that sets Jacob apart as the speaker recalling his own experience, commonly rendered "as for me" or "now as for me." The temporal setting is built with the infinitive construct vo.'i ("my coming", H0935G) governed by the preposition be ("in/when", H9003), together with the suffix -i ("my", H9040): "in my coming from Paddan." Only after this temporal frame does the main verb me.tah ("she died", H4191) appear, a qal perfect indicating a completed action set within that journey.

The phrase 'alay ("upon me", H5921A+H9030) attached to the death-verb is notable: Hebrew idiom often uses "upon" with verbs of dying or loss to indicate that the event fell upon a particular person, a nuance not carried by a simple "Rachel died" in English. The narrative continues with the vav-consecutive verb va'eqbereha ("and I buried her", H6912+H9034), keeping the first-person sequence: coming, dying-upon-me, burying. The final identification hi' Beit Lachem ("she/it [is] Bethlehem", H1931+H1035G) uses the independent pronoun hi' to equate the place name Ephrath with Bethlehem.

Differences between versions

The LXX adds "your mother" (ἡ μήτηρ σου) after "Rachel," a phrase absent from the Hebrew clause. Where the Hebrew has mi-Paddan ("from Paddan", H6307), the LXX reads "from Mesopotamia of Syria" (ἐκ Μεσοποταμίας τῆς Συρίας), a geographic expansion. For kivrat-'eretz ("a distance of land", H3530+H0776G), the LXX uses a racecourse-measure idiom (κατὰ τὸν ἱππόδρομον), while the Vulgate instead inserts "eratque vernum tempus" ("and it was springtime"), a temporal note not present in the Hebrew wording. The Vulgate also adds an explanatory clause, "quæ alio nomine appellatur Bethlehem" ("which is called by another name, Bethlehem"), expanding the simple Hebrew identification hi' Beit Lachem.

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