Genesis 27:35

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He said, "Your brother came with deceit, and has taken away your blessing."

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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Word by word

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בְּמִרְמָ֑ה

mirmâh

H4820

“in/at · deceit”

Preposition + Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 39× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H7411 in the sense of deceiving

TWOT: 2169b

deceit, treachery

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 →

6: words
6: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

בְּמִרְמָ֑ה deceit H4820

Shared distinctive vocabulary

בְּמִרְמָ֑ה deceit H4820 occurs in 38 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
3 nouns

Verb forms

וַיֹּ֕אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
בָּ֥א Qal · Perfect
וַיִּקַּ֖ח Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 13 words from the Hebrew and 15 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.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Genesis 27:35 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

1 Thessalonians 4:6 that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified.
Job 13:7 Will you speak unrighteously for God, And talk deceitfully for him?
Malachi 2:10 Don't we all have one father? Hasn't one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
Genesis 27:19–23 Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn. I have done what you asked me to do. Please arise, sit and eat of my venison, that your soul may bless me."
2 Kings 10:19 Now therefore call to me all the prophets of Baal, all his worshippers, and all his priests; let none be wanting: for I have a great sacrifice [to do] to Baal; whoever shall be wanting, he shall not live. But Jehu did it in subtlety, to the intent that he might destroy the worshippers of Baal.
Romans 3:7–8 For if the truth of God through my lie abounded to his glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner?
2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in clay vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.

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.

Hebrew Genesis 27:35 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּ֕אמֶר בָּ֥א אָחִ֖יךָ בְּמִרְמָ֑ה וַיִּקַּ֖ח בִּרְכָתֶֽךָ

He said, "Your brother came with deceit, and has taken away your blessing."

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Genesis 27:35 Septuagint · lemma form

εἶπον δέ αὐτός ἔρχομαι ὁ ἀδελφός σύ μετά δόλος λαμβάνω ὁ εὐλογία σύ

And he said to him, Your brother has come with subtlety, and taken your blessing.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

On this verse, The Pulpit Commentary discusses the Septuagint’s reading. Read the note in Commentary ↓

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.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וַאֲמַר עַל אָחוּךְ בְּחָכְמְתָא וְקַבִּיל בִּרְכְּתָךְ

(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.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וַאֲמַר עַל אָחוּךְ בְּחָכְמְתָא וְקַבֵּיל מִינִי בִּרְכָתָךְ

Thy brother hath come with subtilty, and hath received from me thy blessing.

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.

Commentary

Notes on Genesis 27:35 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

Gen 27:35 And he said, Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing.

Ver. 35. Thy brother came with subtilty.] Junius observes, that Isaac here, to please his son, committeth some oversight, in transferring the fault upon Jacob. He might have seen how God chastised his seeking to cross the oracle, in the sin of Rebekah and Jacob, who beguiled him. But our minds are as ill set as our eyes, - neither of them apt to turn inwards.

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.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 35. Hath taken away thy blessing.] This blessing, which was a different thing from the birthright, seems to consist of two parts:

1. The dominion, generally and finally, over the other part of the family; and,

2. Being the progenitor of the Messiah.

But the former is more explicitly declared than the latter. See Clarke on Ge 25:31.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

35. Thy brother … guile] Isaac at once concludes that the deceiver was Jacob, and acknowledges that Jacob’s trick has succeeded.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And he said, thy brother came with subtilty,.... The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, and so Jarchi, interpret it, "with wisdom", taking it in a good sense, and as excusing the fact; or rather commending it, as if it was wisely and prudently managed; but the word signifies fraud and deceit, and so it must be understood; though it may be Isaac says this, not so much to blame Jacob for what he had done, as to excuse himself to Esau, that he did not intend to give the blessing from him, but that he was imposed upon through the craft and subtilty of his brother, who feigned himself to be Esau; pretending he had been hunting, and had had wonderful success, and had got venison, and had prepared it; and came with goat, skins upon his hands and neck, that he might seem to be hairy as Esau was, and by these artful tricks he had deceived him, and therefore Esau could not blame him for what he had done:

and hath taken away thy blessing; which belonged to him as the firstborn, and he expected to have, and Isaac intended to have given it to him.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Deceitfully. Hebrew, slily; directed by wisdom, as the Chaldean has it. St. Chrysostom (de sacerd.) praises the address of Jacob on this occasion. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

Which was thine by the right of nature, and by custom of nations, and by my hearty desire and intention, as well as by thy own expectation and opinion.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

And he (i.e. Isaac) said, Thy brother came with subtlety, with wisdom (Onkelos); rather with fraud, meta dolou (LXX) and hath taken away thy blessing i.e. the blessing which I thought was thine, since Isaac now understood that from the first it had been designed for Jacob.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

במרמה WITH SUBTLETY — with cleverness (cf. Onkelos).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Radak

Rabbi David Kimhi (Radak)

ויאמר...במרמה, by making his hands appear hairy.

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (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 6 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is mirmâh (“deceit”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “deceit” (mirmâh) shape what this verse is saying?
This is the first place “deceit” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does Genesis 34:13, which shares the word «deceit», read alongside this verse?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
«וַיֹּ֕אמֶר» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Adam Clarke's Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
These translations choose different wording for 6 words in this verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.