Genesis 30

Notes

1. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 128, 20

   הָבָה with an object is "give," the imperative of the verb that is "up" before a cohortative (11:3–4, 7), a split by construction (128). Here, as at 29:21, it takes an object: "give me sons." Rachel's demand comes to the man, and Jacob's answer in v. 2 sends it on to Elohim. Sarai asked her man for a maid (16:2), and Isaac pleaded for Rebekah (25:21); Rachel asks for the sons themselves.

2. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 10

   מֵתָה is a participle, "dying" or "dead," with no tense: "dying am I" keeps it. b. Nedarim 64b counts one without children among four who are reckoned as dead, and cites this verse. The words turn on her. Rachel dies giving birth to her second son (35:16–19).

3. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 9, 107

   The same question is Joseph's to his brothers, word for word, at 50:19: הֲתַחַת אֱלֹהִים אָנִי, "Am I in place of Elohim?" Compare the king of Israel at 2 Kgs 5:7, "Am I Elohim, to kill and make alive?" Elohim takes the capital by agreement: the relative verb מָנַע "who has hindered" is singular, and its subject is Elohim. The barren womb is Elohim's to open, as Leah's was opened (29:31) and Rachel's will be (v. 22). "Withhold," the expected word, is kept for חָשַׂךְ (22:12, 16), so מָנַע takes "hinder."

4. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 34, 76

   Rachel calls Bilhah אֲמָתִי, and the narrator calls her שִׁפְחָה "maid" in v. 4, two words for one woman, as Hagar is "maid" at 16:1 and "slave-woman" in Sarah's mouth at 21:10. Rachel speaks of a woman she owns, a gift from her father (29:29), not of herself in deference, so the split of אָמָה gives "slave-woman" (34, 76).

5. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 17, 39

   אִבָּנֶה "I shall be built" plays on בֵּן "son," as Sarai's words at 16:2 did: "perhaps I shall be built from her." English has no pun that keeps "build" and "son" (17), so it stays here. The house is built by the sons born in it (Ruth 4:11; Deut 25:9). To bear "on the knees" of another is to bear a child that the other takes as her own: Joseph's great-grandchildren are born on his knees (50:23), and Naomi takes Ruth's son into her bosom (Ruth 4:16).

6. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 17, 18

   The name דָּן is explained by דָּנַנִּי, "he has held court for me," from דִּין "hold court" (15:14). The suffix is the verb's object: Elohim has judged her case, and judged it for her, since "he has heard my voice" in the same breath. "Dan" cannot carry "hold court" in English (17), so the pun stays here. Jacob blesses Dan with the same verb: "Dan shall hold court for his people" (49:16). Dinah's name (v. 21) is from the same root. The names of the sons born in this chapter, with their Hebrew forms and the words they are explained by, are in the names table.

   See the table

7. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed" (KJV) / "With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed" (RSV)

   Rulings 38, 128, 107, 25, 2

   פָּתַל is to twist: "with the twisted you show yourself twisted" (Ps 18:27; 2 Sam 22:27, תִּתְפַּתָּל); "nothing twisted or crooked" in wisdom's words (Prov 8:8, נִפְתָּל); "a twisted and crooked generation" (Deut 32:5, פְּתַלְתֹּל); its noun is פָּתִיל "cord" (38:18, 25; Num 19:15). The noun נַפְתּוּלִים, only here, is "twistings," and the niphal is the twisting of one body against another. "Wrestle" is kept for אָבַק at the Jabbok (32:25–26), so the two struggles of this family stay apart in English and the reader can set them side by side. Rashi offers two readings: "I was stubborn," from the twisted, and "I was joined," from פָּתִיל. Targum Onkelos turns the struggle into prayer: Elohim accepted my petition when I prayed. The LXX has "God helped me, and I contended with my sister" (συνελάβετό μοί ὁ θεός), and the Vulgate comparavit me Deus cum sorore mea. אֱלֹהִים has no verb in its clause; it stands in construct after the noun. It may be the divine name (struggles before or with Elohim) or the Hebrew superlative, "mighty twistings," as "mountains of El" are mighty mountains (Ps 36:7) and Nineveh is "a great city to elohim" (Jonah 3:3). Ruling 107 does not apply: Elohim is not the speaker, and the word stands in apposition to no divine name. Ruling 128 capitalises by reference only where Adonai names himself, or is named, as that Elohim within the same scene, and Adonai is not named in vv. 1–8. So ruling 38 holds: lowercase "elohim," which keeps both the divine name and the superlative open. "Also I have been able" is the home gloss of יָכֹל, the verb the man at the Jabbok gives to Jacob: "you have striven with Elohim and with men, and you have been able" (32:29).

8. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 2

   "Stood from bearing" is the phrase of 29:35, where Leah first stops. עָמַד keeps "stand": the sea "stood from its raging" (Jonah 1:15), and the oil "stood" when the vessels ran out (2 Kgs 4:6). To stand is to stop.

9. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "A troop cometh" (KJV) / "Good fortune!" (RSV)

   Rulings 19, 18, 17

   The ketiv is one word, בגד, read בְּגָד "with fortune." The qere divides it, בָּא גָד, "fortune has come," and the qere is printed (19). The sense differs only a little. The ketiv's "with fortune" is the reading of the LXX (Ἐν τύχῃ) and the Vulgate (feliciter), and the RSV follows it. Targum Onkelos follows the qere. The KJV's "a troop cometh" takes גָּד from גְּדוּד "raiding band," from Jacob's blessing: "Gad, a raiding band shall raid him" (49:19). גַּד is "fortune," as in "Gad" the god of fortune, for whom Isaiah's apostates "set a table" (Isa 65:11), and in the place-name Baal-gad (Josh 11:17). The name of the son is the word his mother says. "Gad" cannot also mean "fortune" in English (17), so the pun is kept here and in the names table.

10. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed" (KJV) / "Happy am I! For the women will call me happy" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 17, 18, 95

    בְּאָשְׁרִי is a noun with בְּ, "in my happiness," an exclamation with no verb. אִשְּׁרוּנִי is the piel of the same root, "they call me happy": "her sons rise up and call her happy" (Prov 31:28); "all nations shall call him happy" (Ps 72:17); and, nearest to this verse, "daughters saw her and called her happy" (Song 6:9, רָאוּהָ בָנוֹת וַיְאַשְּׁרוּהָ). The root is that of the core gloss אַשְׁרֵי "happy" (Ps 1:1), so "happiness," "call happy" and Asher keep one English family. The KJV's "blessed" brings in בָּרַךְ, which this verse does not have. The verb is a perfect, which the KJV and RSV read as a future of certainty; the English present, "call me happy," holds both the women who already do and the ones who will. Mary's song takes up the verse in its Greek: "from now on all generations will call me happy" (Luke 1:48, μακαριοῦσίν με).

11. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 18, 25, 39

    דּוּדָאִים are mandrakes, Mandragora officinarum, whose yellow fruit ripens at the wheat harvest in May and was reputed to help a woman conceive. The LXX has "apples of mandrakes" (μῆλα μανδραγορῶν), the Vulgate mandragoras, and Rashi gives the Arabic name of the plant, yabrūḥ. The word is of the root of דּוֹד "beloved, love," and the Song plays on it: "there I will give you my loves (דֹּדַי); the mandrakes (הַדּוּדָאִים) give scent" (Song 7:13–14). So the women bargain over a love-plant for a night of love, but the plant does nothing. Leah gives the mandrakes away and conceives (v. 17), while Rachel takes them and stays barren until Elohim remembers her (v. 22).

12. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 10, 17, 128

    שָׂכֹר שְׂכַרְתִּיךָ is an infinitive absolute with its finite verb, "hiring I have hired you," kept doubled, as in "dying you shall die" (2:17). The verb is of the root of שָׂכָר "wage" (128). Leah's hire names the son of v. 18, and Jacob's wage is the subject of vv. 28–33.

13. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18

    The name יִשָּׂשכָר is written with a second שׂ that is not read (Yissakhar). It sounds like יֵשׁ שָׂכָר "there is a wage," or אִישׁ שָׂכָר "a man of wage." Leah gives one reason for the name, the wage for giving her maid to her man. The reader has just heard another, the hire of v. 16. One name has two explanations, as Joseph's will (vv. 23–24). "Wage" is the word of Jacob's bargains with Laban: 29:15, and here vv. 28, 32, 33. "Issachar" cannot carry "wage" in English (17), so the pun is kept here and in the names table.

14. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "God hath endued me with a good dowry; now will my husband dwell with me" (KJV) / "God has endowed me with a good dowry; now my husband will honor me" (RSV)

    Rulings 25, 1, 17, 18, 24

    זָבַד and its noun זֵבֶד occur only here. They are known from names: Zabdi (Josh 7:1) and Zebadiah, "Yah has endowed" (1 Chr 8:15). "Endowed... endowment" keeps the verb and noun of one root together. אֹתִי repeats the object, "has endowed me, me," and the repetition is kept. זָבַל is found as a verb only here. The Hebrew's own noun decides it (25): זְבֻל is the lofty house, "I have surely built you a house of zebul" (1 Kgs 8:13), Adonai's "holy and beautiful zebul" (Isa 63:15), the zebul where sun and moon stand (Hab 3:11). Ugaritic zbl "prince" (zbl bʿl, "Prince Baal") is behind Beelzebul (2 Kgs 1:2; Matt 10:25). So the verb is "exalt," to make one a princess in the house. The LXX has "my husband will choose me" (αἱρετιεῖ με). The Vulgate's "my husband will be with me" (mecum erit) is the source of the KJV's "dwell with me," and "dwell" is יָשַׁב's in this translation. The RSV's "honor" is the piel of כָּבֵד. The two verbs זָבַד and זָבַל sound alike, and the name Zebulun takes up both; "endowed" and "exalt" keep the two apart, and the sound goes to this note (24). "This turn" is הַפַּעַם, Leah's word at the births of Levi and Judah (29:34–35; 97).

15. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 18

    Dinah, דִּינָה, is of the root of דִּין "hold court," as is Dan (v. 6). She is the only daughter of Jacob whose birth is told, and she is given no explanation of her name. Her story is told in Gen 34, where her brothers judge for her.

16. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "God hath taken away my reproach" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 17, 18

    אָסַף keeps its home gloss "gather." The gathering that takes a thing in also takes it away: "only let us be called by your name; gather our reproach" (Isa 4:1, אֱסֹף חֶרְפָּתֵנוּ), and "gather your hand" (1 Sam 14:19), "gather him from his leprosy" (2 Kgs 5:3, 6). The name יוֹסֵף is explained twice, by אָסַף "has gathered" in v. 23 and by יֹסֵף "may he add" in v. 24, a jussive of יָסַף "add." One looks back on the barrenness and the other forward to another son. That son is Benjamin, and Rachel dies in bearing him (35:16–18). The second explanation is the first naming in this chapter to use the name Adonai. "Joseph" carries neither verb in English (17); both are kept here and in the names table.

17. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "I have learned by experience that the LORD hath blessed me for thy sake" (KJV) / "I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 40, 25

    נִחֵשׁ is the piel of the verb of divination: Joseph's silver cup is the one "by which he indeed divines" (44:5, 15); the Torah forbids it (Lev 19:26; Deut 18:10); "there is no divination in Jacob" (Num 23:23). The KJV's "learned by experience" removes the practice from Laban's mouth. The consonants are those of נָחָשׁ "serpent" (3:1). The divination fits the man whose household gods Rachel will steal (31:19). A sense "I have grown rich," drawn from an Akkadian verb, has been suggested, but it has no support in Hebrew, so the attested sense is printed (40). Laban's sentence has a protasis and no apodosis: "If, please, I have found favor in your eyes" breaks off, and the dash marks the break. The KJV supplies "tarry" in italics, and the RSV smooths the break into "If you will allow me to say so." The Hebrew leaves Laban's request unspoken.

18. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 39

    לְרַגְלִי, "at my foot," means wherever Jacob set his foot (RSV "wherever I turned"; KJV "since my coming"). The foot is kept (39): those who go "at the foot" of someone are his followers and attendants (Judg 4:10; 1 Sam 25:42). The blessing promised at Bethel, "in you all the clans of the ground shall be blessed" (28:14), here reaches Laban.

19. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 10

    אָשׁוּבָה אֶרְעֶה: before a second verb, שׁוּב is the Hebrew way of saying "again" (26:18, "Isaac returned and dug" the wells). The home gloss is held, so the verb Jacob most wants is heard. He has asked to go back to his land (v. 25), and Adonai has promised to bring him back (28:15). Here he "returns" to Laban's flock. The three verbs stand without "and," and the last, "I will keep," has no object, as the Hebrew has none.

20. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats" (KJV) / "every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 25, 33, 39, 6

    The marks are kept to one word each through vv. 32–43. נָקֹד is "speckled," marked with small points. Its letters are those of נֹקֵד "sheep-breeder," the title of Mesha of Moab (2 Kgs 3:4) and of Amos (Amos 1:1). טָלֻא is "patched": the Gibeonites' sandals are "patched" (Josh 9:5, מְטֻלָּאוֹת), and Jerusalem's high places are patched with colours (Ezek 16:16). A coat in patches is larger-marked than a spotted one. חוּם, only in this chapter, is of the root of חָמַם "be hot" (חֹם "heat," 8:22): the scorched colour, brown to black. The LXX has φαιόν "dusky," the Vulgate furvum, the KJV "brown," the RSV "black." "Dark" is printed. כֶּשֶׂב is כֶּבֶשׂ "lamb" with two letters exchanged, the same word in the priestly law (Lev 1:10; 3:7; compare Exod 12:5). "Lamb" is the gloss kept for that word (124), so כֶּשֶׂב takes it too. Here it is the sheep of the flock as against the goats; the RSV keeps "lambs," the KJV "sheep." שֶׂה "sheep" is one head of the flock, a sheep or a goat (124), so "dark sheep among the lambs" is the Hebrew's own way of counting. The order "patched and speckled" among the goats reverses "speckled and patched," and it is kept (6).

21. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 1

    "And it shall be my wage" leaves open which animals the wage is. On one reading the marked animals Jacob removes now are his. On the other, which v. 35 bears out, they are taken out of the flock and away, and Jacob's wage is the marked young that the plain flock will bear from now on. Rashi reads it so: what is born speckled and patched among the goats, and dark among the lambs, from this day on. "It" keeps the Hebrew's singular, and the next verses decide the question.

22. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "So shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come, when it shall come for my hire before thy face" (KJV) / "So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 40, 2

    צְדָקָה keeps the core gloss "justice." עָנָה with בְּ is the verb of a witness: "you shall not answer against your fellow as a false witness" (Exod 20:16); "answer against me before Adonai" (1 Sam 12:3). Jacob offers his own justice as the witness in his case, and "answer for me" keeps the court. מָחָר "tomorrow" is the time to come: "tomorrow, when your son asks you" (Exod 13:14; Deut 6:20; Josh 4:6, 21; 22:24). "In the day of tomorrow" keeps the phrase. תָּבוֹא may be "you come" (second person masculine) or "it comes" (third person feminine, "my justice comes"). The KJV takes the second and the RSV the first. English must choose. Neither reading is the stranger one, so the plainer subject, Laban coming to inspect, is printed with the other in this note (40).

23. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 2

    גָּנוּב, the passive participle of גָּנַב "steal," is the first use of the verb in the Bible. It returns through the next chapter. Rachel steals her father's household gods (31:19, 32), and Jacob "steals the heart" of Laban (31:20, 26–27). Jacob also says to Laban, "stolen by day, stolen by night," you required it of my hand (31:39). Joseph will say "stolen, I was stolen" from the land of the Hebrews (40:15). Jacob's offer here sets the measure by which the next chapter judges both houses.

24. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 8, 2

    The verb has no named subject. Laban spoke last (v. 34), and "his sons" are most naturally Laban's (31:1), since Jacob's eldest son is a small child. So the RSV prints "Laban removed," and most readers follow it. Jacob, though, offered to do the removing himself (v. 32), and the Hebrew leaves the pronoun as it is. "He" and "his" are kept.

25. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 25, 124

    עָקֹד "striped" is of the root of עָקַד "truss" (22:9; 124): marked with bands as if bound, rings round the legs or the body. The KJV's "ringstraked," that is, ring-streaked, keeps the ring. The word returns in Jacob's dream of the flock (31:8, 10, 12). The Binding of Isaac and the banded goats are one root in Hebrew. "Striped" holds the look of the coat, and this note holds the link.

26. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18, 25

    לָבָן "white" is the name Laban. The animals with "white" in them go to Laban's sons (v. 35), and then Jacob turns white against "White." He takes poplar, לִבְנֶה (Hos 4:13), whose name is "the white tree." He peels "white" streaks, לְבָנוֹת, and lays bare "the white," הַלָּבָן. English cannot carry Laban's name in "white" (17), so the play stays here. The almond, לוּז, is the tree that gave Bethel its old name, Luz (28:19), where Jacob was promised the land and vowed to return; the word is known as a tree only here, and Aramaic and Arabic lauz "almond" decide it (25). עַרְמוֹן is the plane tree, with the cedars and cypresses of the garden of Elohim in Ezekiel's song (Ezek 31:8). Its sound is close to עָרוּם "shrewd" (3:1), and the shrewdness is Jacob's here.

27. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 25

    רַהַט, here and in v. 41, is a channel or runnel, of a root that means "run" in Aramaic. In the Song the beloved's tresses hold a king captive "in the runnels" (Song 7:6). Reuel's daughters "filled the runnels to water their father's flock" (Exod 2:16). The next phrase, "in the troughs (שִׁקֲתוֹת) of the waters," is in apposition: the runnels are the troughs where the flock drinks (24:20).

28. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 25

    יָחַם is "be in heat," of animals in rut. It is a near neighbour of חָמַם "be hot" and of חֵמָה "heat, fury" (27:44), and its sound runs into חוּם "dark," the colour of Jacob's wage. The psalmist uses it of his own conception: "in sin my mother was in heat with me" (Ps 51:7, יֶחֱמַתְנִי). It returns in Jacob's dream: "at the time the flock were in heat" (31:10). The breeding here is told without comment. Jacob tells it in Gen 31 as Elohim's doing (31:9–12).

29. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 2

    "He gave the face of the flock toward the striped": נָתַן keeps its home gloss with the face, as one "gives" one's face toward a place (Dan 9:3). The clause is compressed. Jacob separates the lambs he has bred, and turns the faces of Laban's plain flock toward the striped and dark animals, so that what the flock looks at it bears. Rashi takes the striped as leading the drove, with the plain flock behind them looking at them.

30. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 25

    קָשַׁר is to knit or tie: Jonathan's soul was "knit" to David's (1 Sam 18:1), and Jacob's soul is "knit with" Benjamin's (44:30). The pual participle here is the well-knit, the sturdy animals of the flock. Their opposite is עָטַף "be feeble" (v. 42), which elsewhere is to grow faint (Ps 61:3; 102:1; Lam 2:11–12) and, as a homograph, to wrap (Ps 65:14, "the valleys wrap themselves in grain"). Targum Onkelos reads the two as the early-breeding and the late-breeding ewes. "Knit" and "feeble" keep the Hebrew's picture of the body.