אִם לֹ֧א אֶל בֵּית אָבִ֛י תֵּלֵ֖ךְ וְאֶל מִשְׁפַּחְתִּ֑י וְלָקַחְתָּ֥ אִשָּׁ֖ה לִבְנִֽי
but you shall go to my father's house, and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son.'
World English Bible · Public Domain
Genesis 24:38
Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex) Genesis 24:38 appears in the Hebrew Old Testament. The text above is from the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Each word links to its Strong’s number, a concise gloss, and parsing drawn from the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible morphology. Click any word for its full Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) entry.
English Translation
but you shall go to my father's house, and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son.'
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Compare translations 3
The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
Each is an independent rendering of the whole verse — the interlinear is not word-aligned to these translations.
Highlighted words mark where these versions differ — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment.
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World English Bible Public Domain
but you shall go to my father's house, and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son.'
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King James Version Public Domain
But thou shalt go unto my father's house, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son.
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
but rather you must go to the house of my father, and to my clan, and take a wife for my son.’
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Show all 18 translations
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
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World English Bible Public Domain
but you shall go to my father's house, and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son.'
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Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
but you shall go to my father’s house and to my kindred to take a wife for my son.’
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Majority Standard Bible Public Domain
but you shall go to my father’s house and to my kindred to take a wife for my son.’
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King James Version Public Domain
But thou shalt go unto my father's house, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son.
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American Standard Version (1901) Public Domain
But thou shalt go unto my father's house, and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son.
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Revised Version (1885) Public Domain
but thou shalt go unto my father’s house, and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son.
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Geneva Bible (1599) Public Domain
But thou shalt go vnto my fathers house and to my kinred, and take a wife vnto my sonne.
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Douay-Rheims (1899) Public Domain
But thou shalt go to my father's house, and shalt take a wife of my own kindred for my son:
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Young's Literal Translation Public Domain
If not -- unto the house of my father thou dost go, and unto my family, and thou hast taken a wife for my son.
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Literal Standard Version CC BY-SA 4.0
If not—to the house of my father you go, and to my family, and you have taken a wife for my son.
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Unlocked Literal Bible CC BY-SA 4.0
Instead, you must go to my father's family, and to my relatives, and get a wife for my son.'
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
but rather you must go to the house of my father, and to my clan, and take a wife for my son.’
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Darby Bible Public Domain
but thou shalt by all means go to my father's house and to my family, and take a wife for my son.
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World Messianic Bible Public Domain
but you shall go to my father’s house, and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son.’
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Webster's Bible Public Domain
But thou shalt go to my father's house, and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son.
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Free Bible Version CC BY-SA 4.0
Instead, go to my family home where my relatives live, and find a wife there for my son Isaac.’
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Bible in Basic English Public Domain
But go to my father's house and to my relations for a wife for my son.
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JPS Tanakh (1917) Public Domain
But thou shalt go unto my father's house, and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son.
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
Word by word
More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →
Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →
מִשְׁפַּחְתִּ֑י
mishpâchâh
H4940
“family · my”
Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Singular
- Appears 304× in the Hebrew Bible
- First appears at Genesis 8:19
- Part of Speech
- Noun
- Type
- Common
- Gender
- Feminine
- Number
- Singular
- State
- Construct
Full BDB Definition
clan, family
- clan
- family
- tribe
- people, nation
- guild
- species, kind
- aristocrats
- אִם ʼim H518 “if” Conjunction
- לֹ֧א lôʼ H3808 “not” Particle, Negative
- אֶל ʼêl H413 “to” Preposition
- בֵּית bayith H1004 “house of” Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct
- אָבִ֛י ʼâb H1 “father · my” Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Singular
- תֵּלֵ֖ךְ yâlak H3212 “to walk” Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular
- וְאֶל ʼêl H413 “and · to” Conjunction + Preposition
- מִשְׁפַּחְתִּ֑י mishpâchâh H4940 “family · my” Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Singular
- וְלָקַחְתָּ֥ lâqach H3947 “and · to take” Conjunction + Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular
- אִשָּׁ֖ה ʼishshâh H802 “woman” Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute
- לִבְנִֽי bên H1121 “to/for · son · my” Preposition + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 1st Person, Common, Singular
About this verse
These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →
- 11
- words
- 10
- distinct lemmas
- Pentateuch
- section
Grammatical profile
- 2 verbs
- 5 nouns
- 2 prepositions
- 1 conjunction
- 1 particle
Verb forms
- תֵּלֵ֖ךְ Qal · Imperfect
- וְלָקַחְתָּ֥ Qal · Sequential Perfect
Repetition
A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
- אֶל to H413 ×2
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 19 words from the Hebrew and 24 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.
A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.
Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.
In the original languages it is 11 Hebrew tokens and 21 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.
Cross-references
3Topical passages linked to Genesis 24:38 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
- Genesis 24:4 But you shall go to my country, and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac."
- Genesis 12:1 Now Yahweh said to Abram, "Get out of your country, and from your relatives, and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you.
- Genesis 31:19 Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep: and Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father's.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint
The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.
These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.
ἀλλά ἤ εἰς ὁ οἶκος ὁ πατήρ ἐγώ πορεύομαι καί εἰς ὁ φυλή ἐγώ καί λαμβάνω γυνή ὁ υἱός ἐγώ ἐκεῖθεν
But you shall go to the house of my father, and to my tribe, and you shall take thence a wife for my son.
LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain
Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →
Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)
The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.
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Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)
אֶלָהֵן לְבֵית אַבָּא תֵּזִיל וּלְזַרְעִיתִי וְתִסַּב אִתְּתָא לִבְרִי
(no public-domain English translation for this verse)
Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
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Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)
אֱלָהֵן לְבֵית אִיבָּא תֵּזִיל וּלְיִיחוּסִי וְתִסַב אִיתָא לִבְרִי
but shall go to my kindred, and take a wife for my son.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Lesson kit
Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.
Genesis, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 11 words (10 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is mishpâchâh (“family”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Discussion questions
- How does “family” (mishpâchâh) shape what this verse is saying?
- How does Genesis 24:4, which shares this passage’s theme, read alongside this verse?
- What does the repetition of “to” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
- These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
- «תֵּלֵ֖ךְ» is a Qal Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
- Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?
Things to notice
- This verse counts 11 Hebrew ↔ 21 Greek words.
- These translations choose different wording for 9 words in this verse.
- “to” occurs 2× in this single verse.
- 10 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 11 words in this verse.
Commentary
Notes on Genesis 24:38 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.
Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →
Trapp's Complete Commentary
John Trapp
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Geneva Bible (1599)
Geneva Bible translators
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill's Exposition
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.