Genesis 29:16

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Laban had two daughters. The name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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לֵאָ֔ה

Lêʼâh

H3812

“Leah”

Noun, Proper

Appears 34× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H3811

TWOT: None

Leah = "weary" - daughter of Laban, first wife of Jacob, and mother of Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Dinah

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 →

9: words
8: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

First appearance in Scripture

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

לֵאָ֔ה Leah H3812

Shared distinctive vocabulary

לֵאָ֔ה Leah H3812 occurs in 32 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

6 nouns
3 adjectives

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

שֵׁ֤ם name H8034 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 19 words from the Hebrew and 19 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

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 9 Hebrew tokens and 14 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

Topical passages linked to Genesis 29:16 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 49:31 There they buried Abraham and Sarah, his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah, his wife, and there I buried Leah:
Ruth 4:11 All the people who were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. Yahweh make the woman who has come into your house like Rachel and like Leah, which two built the house of Israel: and do you worthily in Ephrathah, and be famous in Bethlehem:
Genesis 29:17 Leah's eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful and well favored.
Genesis 29:25–32 It happened in the morning that, behold, it was Leah. He said to Laban, "What is this you have done to me? Didn't I serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?"
Genesis 30:19 Leah conceived again, and bore a sixth son to Jacob.
Genesis 31:4 Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field to his flock,
Genesis 35:23 The sons of Leah: Reuben (Jacob's firstborn), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun.
Genesis 46:15 These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan Aram, with his daughter Dinah. All the souls of his sons and his daughters were thirty-three.

Genesis 33:2 He put the handmaids and their children in front, Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph at the rear.

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 29:16 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וּלְלָבָ֖ן שְׁתֵּ֣י בָנ֑וֹת שֵׁ֤ם הַגְּדֹלָה֙ לֵאָ֔ה וְשֵׁ֥ם הַקְּטַנָּ֖ה רָחֵֽל

Laban had two daughters. The name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Genesis 29:16 Septuagint · lemma form

ὁ δέ λαβαν δύο θυγάτηρ ὄνομα ὁ μέγας λεια καί ὄνομα ὁ νέος ραχηλ

Now Laban had two daughters, the name of the elder was Lea, and the name of the younger, Rachel.

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.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וּלְלָבָן תַּרְתֵּין בְּנָן שׁוּם רַבְּתָא לֵאָה וְשׁוּם זְעֶרְתָּא רָחֵל

(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)

וּלְלָבָן הֲווֹן תַּרְתֵּין בְּנָן שׁוּם רַבְּתָא לֵאָה וְשׁוּם זְעִירְתָּא רָחֵל

And Laban had two daughters, the name of the elder Leah, and the name of the younger Rahel.

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 29:16 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 29:16 And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder [was] Leah, and the name of the younger [was] Rachel.

Ver. 16. The name of the elder was Leah,] i.e., Weak and wearish, by her natural constitution {a} No marvel, therefore, though she were weak-sighted, as Gen 29:17.

{a} Debilis, nec bene habita, quasi lassa ex debilitate constitutionis.

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.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

16. Leah] The meaning of “Leah” is uncertain. According to some scholars, who see in it a totem name, it should be compared with an Arabic word meaning “a wild cow”; according to others, with an Assyrian word meaning “a lady.”

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 Laban had two daughters,.... Grown up and marriageable:

and the name of the elder was Leah; which signifies labour or weariness:

and the name of the younger was Rachel; before mentioned, whom Jacob met with at the well, Gen 29:10; and whose name signifies a sheep, as before observed; see Gill on Gen 29:9.

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

The Pulpit Commentary

And Laban had two daughters (the wife of Laban is not mentioned in the story): the name of the elder was Leah, (Gesenius); "Dull," Stupid" (Furst); "Pining," "Yearning" (Lange)and the name of the younger was Rachel (Gesenius).

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

Radak

Rabbi David Kimhi (Radak)

וללבן שתי בנות, the fact that Lavan had two daughters, etc., is mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph in order for us to understand what is reported later about Yaakov having fallen in love with Rachel and offering to serve Lavan for 7 years for her hand in marriage. The Torah wants us to understand that Yaakov would never have agreed to work for Leah’s hand in marriage for even a fraction of such a long period.

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 9 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Lêʼâh (“Leah”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “Leah” (Lêʼâh) contribute to the verse as a whole?
The word “Leah” first appears here in Scripture. What is being introduced at this debut?
Genesis 29:17 shares the word «Leah» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“name” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
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?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 9 Hebrew ↔ 14 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 3 words in this verse.
“name” occurs 2× in this single verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.