Genesis 49:31

Summary

Jacob recounts where his ancestors are buried: Abraham and Sarah, then Isaac and Rebekah, using an impersonal "they buried" construction. In the final clause, he switches to first person, stating that he himself buried Leah there.

Key words

• Sha.mah ("there", H8033G) — adverb of place, repeated three times (lines 1, 11, 22) with the directional he (H9011) reinforcing "to that place," anchoring all three burials to a single location.
• ka.ve.Ru ("they buried", H6912) — qal perfect, 3rd person plural, used impersonally (no explicit subject) for the burials of Abraham/Sarah and Isaac/Rebekah — a common Hebrew way to express a passive-like sense ("were buried") without a passive verb form.
• ka.Var.ti ("I buried", H6912) — same root as above, but qal perfect 1st person singular. The shift from plural to singular marks Jacob as the personal, named subject of Leah's burial, unlike the anonymous "they" of the prior burials.
• 'ish.T...o ("his wife", H0802H + H9023) — feminine singular noun in construct form with a 3rd person masculine singular suffix, appearing twice to link Sarah to Abraham and Rebekah to Isaac.
• 'et- (H0853) — the direct object marker, untranslated, appearing before every proper name to mark it as the object of the burial verb.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as three parallel clauses, each opening with sha.mah ("there") plus the directional he, which together stress location rather than time — the emphasis falls on the place of burial repeated three times. The first two clauses use ka.ve.Ru, a 3rd person plural perfect verb with no stated subject, a common Hebrew construction functioning close to a passive ("there Abraham... was buried" / "were buried"), naming first Abraham with Sarah his wife, then Isaac with Rebekah his wife, each wife marked by the construct noun 'ish.T plus the possessive suffix -o ("his wife").

The third clause breaks this pattern: the verb shifts to ka.Var.ti, 1st person singular perfect, "I buried." Grammatically, this moves Leah's burial from an impersonal, communal action to one explicitly performed by the speaker (Jacob), who names himself as agent rather than leaving the subject unstated. The direct object marker 'et precedes each proper name throughout (Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Leah), a grammatical marker with no independent gloss, confirming each name's role as object of the burial verb.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the Isaac clause with a passive verb, "sepultus est Isaac" ("Isaac was buried"), which matches the impersonal sense of the Hebrew ka.ve.Ru more directly than an active "they buried." The LXX text as given here diverges more substantially: it names Abraham and Sarah's burial but the clause structure for Isaac and Rebekah appears garbled ("ἕκαστον κατὰ"), and no mention of Leah's burial appears in the LXX text provided, where the Hebrew explicitly closes with Jacob's first-person statement about Leah.