Genesis 49:3

Summary

Jacob addresses Reuben as his firstborn son, describing him with a series of terms tied to strength and status: "my might," "the beginning of my vigor," and then two parallel phrases praising his "excellence" in dignity and power.

Key words

• bekhori ("firstborn of me", H1060) — construct noun + 1st person suffix, marking Reuben's birth-order status directly tied to Jacob ("my firstborn").
• ko.chi ("my strength", H3581B) — construct noun + suffix, paralleling bekhori in apposition to describe what Reuben represents to his father.
• reshit oni ("beginning of my vigor", H7225G + H0202) — a construct chain: reshit ("beginning of") governs oni ("my manly vigor"), a phrase associated with generative or physical potency.
• yeter se'et ("excellence of dignity", H3499A + H7613) — construct chain repeated with variation; yeter ("excellence/excess of") governs the abstract nouns se'et and az.
• yeter az ("excellence of power", H3499A + H5794) — mirrors the prior phrase, forming a poetic doublet closing the verse.

What the text says

The verse opens with direct address, Re'uven ("Reuben", H7205), followed by a nominal sentence without a verb: "Reuben, firstborn-of-me you, strength-of-me and beginning-of-vigor-of-me." The pronoun 'atah ("you", H0859A) sits between the vocative and the predicate nouns, structurally binding "firstborn," "strength," and "beginning of vigor" as parallel descriptions applied to the addressee. All three nouns (bekhori, kochi, reshit oni) carry the 1st-person suffix -i ("my", H9020), showing that Reuben's status is defined relationally — through what he is to Jacob, not as an isolated trait.

The final line shifts into a two-part construct chain built on yeter ("excellence/excess of", H3499A), repeated to introduce se'et ("dignity", H7613) and az ("power", H5794). The repetition of yeter creates a balanced poetic parallelism, typical of Hebrew blessing/oracle style, emphasizing two related but distinct qualities — social standing and physical or political power — without a connecting verb, leaving the exact relationship between Reuben and these qualities to be inferred from context.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders reshit oni ("beginning of my vigor") as "ἀρχὴ τέκνων μου" ("beginning of my children"), interpreting 'oni (H0202) in terms of offspring rather than physical vigor. For the final line, the LXX diverges more sharply, giving "σκληρὸς φέρεσθαι καὶ σκληρὸς αὐθάδης" ("hard to bear and stubbornly self-willed"), a negative characterization not matching the Hebrew's positive vocabulary of "excellence" (yeter, H3499A). The Vulgate's "prior in donis, major in imperio" ("first in gifts, greater in rule") stays closer to the Hebrew's sense of preeminence but uses different abstract categories ("gifts," "rule") than the Hebrew terms se'et ("dignity") and az ("power").