Genesis 30:10

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Zilpah, Leah's handmaid, bore Jacob a son.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

Septuagint runs longer here — compare

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זִלְפָּ֛ה

Zilpâh

H2153

“Zilpah”

Noun, Proper

Appears 7× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 29:24

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from an unused root apparently mean to trickle, as myrrh

TWOT: None

Zilpah = "a trickling" - the Syrian given by Laban to Leah as a handmaid, a concubine of Jacob, mother of Asher and Gad

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

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is זִלְפָּ֛ה Zilpah H2153 — appearing just 7 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

זִלְפָּ֛ה Zilpah H2153 occurs in 7 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

1 verb
5 nouns

Verb forms

וַתֵּ֗לֶד Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 7 words from the Hebrew and 12 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably longer here. See the side-by-side →

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.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably longer than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 12 words vs World English Bible 7. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Genesis 30:10 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַתֵּ֗לֶד זִלְפָּ֛ה שִׁפְחַ֥ת לֵאָ֖ה לְיַעֲקֹ֥ב בֵּֽן

Zilpah, Leah's handmaid, bore Jacob a son.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Genesis 30:10 Septuagint · lemma form

εἰςἔρχομαι δέ πρός αὐτός ἰακώβ καί συνλαμβάνω ζελφα ὁ παιδίσκη λεια καί τίκτω ὁ ἰακώβ υἱός

And Zelpha the maid of Lea conceived, and bore Jacob a son.

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)

וִילִידַת זִלְפָּה אַמְתָא דְלֵאָה לְיַעֲקֹב בָּר

(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)

וִילֵידַת זִלְפָּה אַמְתָא דְלֵאָה לְיַעֲקב בָּר

And Zilpha the handmaid of Leah conceived, and bare Jakob a 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.

Commentary

Notes on Genesis 30:10 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 30:10 And Zilpah Leah’s maid bare Jacob a son.

Ver. 10. Bare Jacob a son.] Here Jacob was too indulgent both to his wives and to himself.

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.

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Tyndale Open Resources

30:10-13 Gad was the name of a god of fortune. Asher was the name of a god of luck. These names reflect Leah’s pagan background, but there is no indication that she believed in these gods.

John Gill's Exposition

And Zilpah, Leah's maid, bare Jacob a second son. As well as Bilhah, and no more.

And Zilpah, Leah's maid, bare Jacob a second son. As well as Bilhah, and no more.

Genesis 30:13

gen 30:13

gen 30:13

gen 30:13And Leah said,.... Upon the birth of the second son by her maid:

happy am I; or, "in my happiness"; or, "for my happiness" (c); that is, this child is an addition to my happiness, and will serve to increase it: for the daughters will call me blessed; the women of the place where she lived would speak of her as a happy person, that had so many children of her own, and others by her maid; see Psa 127:5,

and she called his name Asher, which signifies "happy" or "blessed". These two sons of Zilpah, according to the Jewish writers (d), were born, Gad on the tenth day of Marchesvan or October, and lived one hundred and twenty five years; and Asher on the twenty second day of Shebet or January, and lived one hundred and twenty three years.

(c) "in felicitate mea", Montanus; "ob beatitatem meam", Drusius; "hoc pro beatitudine men", V. L. "pro beatitudine mihi est", Schmidt. (d) Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 4. 1.

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

Vers. 10, 11. And Zilpah Leah"s maid bare Jacob a son. And Leah said, A troop cometh. dgB for dgB, in or with good fortune; ejn tuch (LXX); feliciter, sc. this happens to me (Vulgate), a translation which has the sanction of Gesenius, Furst, Rosenm Keil, Kalisch, and other content authorities the Keri, whith is followed by Onkelos and Syriac, reading dg; aB; fortune cometh. The Authorised rendering, supported by the Samaritan, and supposed to accord better with Gen_49:19, is approved by Calvin, Ainsworth, Bush, and others. And she called his name Gad i.e. Good Fortune.

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)

ותלד זלפה AND ZILPAH BARE — In the case of all Jacob’s wives there is mention of their having been with child (i. e. Scripture states ותהר) except in the case of Zilpah. This was because she was the youngest of all and quite a child in age so that her being with child was not noticeable (Genesis Rabbah 71:9) Laban had given her to Leah in order to deceive Jacob — that he might not perceive that they were bringing Leah to him in marriage — for thus was the custom: to give the elder handmaid to the elder daughter, and the younger handmaid to the younger daughter.

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.

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 Zilpâh (“Zilpah”). The Greek Septuagint runs longer here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word Zilpâh carries the sense “Zilpah.” How does it shape the verse?
Genesis 29:24 shares the word «Zilpah» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
Compared with the Hebrew, the Septuagint runs longer here. What questions does that raise?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
The verb «וַתֵּ֗לֶד» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Tyndale Open Study Notes read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

These translations choose different wording for 7 words in this verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.