Genesis 30:4

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

She gave him Bilhah her handmaid as wife, and Jacob went in to her.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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בִּלְהָ֥ה

Bilhâh

H1090

“Bilhah”

Noun, Proper

Appears 11× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 29:29

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H1089

TWOT: None

Bilhah = "troubled" - Rachel's handmaid whom she gave to Jacob as a concubine, mother to two of Jacob's children, Dan and Naphtali (noun proper feminine) - a city in Simeon (noun proper locative)

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

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is בִּלְהָ֥ה Bilhah H1090 — appearing just 11 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

בִּלְהָ֥ה Bilhah H1090 occurs in 11 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
4 nouns
2 prepositions
1 particle

Verb forms

וַתִּתֶּן Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַיָּבֹ֥א Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 14 words from the Hebrew and 18 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 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 30:4 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 35:22 It happened, while Israel lived in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel heard of it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve.
Genesis 16:3–4 Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to be his wife.
Genesis 21:10 Therefore she said to Abraham, "Cast out this handmaid and her son! For the son of this handmaid will not be heir with my son, even with Isaac."
Genesis 22:24 His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also bare Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.
Genesis 25:1 Abraham took another wife, and her name was Keturah.
Genesis 25:6 but to the sons of the concubines who Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts. He sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, to the east country.
Genesis 33:2 He put the handmaids and their children in front, Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph at the rear.
2 Samuel 12:11 This is what Yahweh says: 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he will lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.

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 30:4 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַתִּתֶּן ל֛וֹ אֶת בִּלְהָ֥ה שִׁפְחָתָ֖הּ לְאִשָּׁ֑ה וַיָּבֹ֥א אֵלֶ֖יהָ יַעֲקֹֽב

She gave him Bilhah her handmaid as wife, and Jacob went in to her.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Genesis 30:4 Septuagint · lemma form

καί δίδωμι αὐτός βαλλα ὁ παιδίσκη αὐτός αὐτός γυνή εἰςἔρχομαι δέ πρός αὐτός ἰακώβ

And she gave him Balla her maid, for a wife to him; and Jacob went in to her.

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)

וִיהָבַת לֵהּ יָת בִּלְהָה אַמְתַהּ לְאִנְתּוּ וְעַל לְוָתַהּ יַעֲקֹב

(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)

וְשַׁחְרָרַת לֵיהּ יַת אַמְתָהּ בִּלְהָה וּמָסְרָה לֵיהּ לְאִנְתּוּ וְעַל לְוָותָהּ יַעֲקב

And she made her handmaid Bilhah free, and delivered her to him, and Jakob entered with her.

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 30:4 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 30:4 And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her.

Ver. 4. And Jacob went in unto her.] Merely to please his wife, he yielded to that which he could not but disallow as evil. Heed must be taken that the hen crow not, that the wife rule not. This γυναικοκρατεια was a part of Jacob’s punishment.

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.

John Gill's Exposition

And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid,.... To be enjoyed as a wife, though she was no other than a concubine; yet such were sometimes called wives, and were secondary ones, and were under the proper lawful wife, nor did their children inherit; but those which Jacob had by his wives' maids did inherit with the rest:

and Jacob went in unto her; consenting to what Rachel his wife proposed to him: having concubines, as well as more wives than one, were not thought criminal in those times, and were suffered of God, and in this case for the multiplication of Jacob's seed; and perhaps he might the more readily comply with the motion of his wife, from the example of his grandfather Abraham, who took Hagar to wife at the instance of Sarah.

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

Marriage. The Manichees condemned Jacob for having more than four wives at once. But St. Augustine replied, it was not then unusual or forbidden. He took the two last only at the pressing instigation of Rachel and Lia, and that only for the sake of children. Lia herself was forced upon him. (contra Faust. xxii. 48.)

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).

The Pulpit Commentary

And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her. "Whence we gather that there is no end of sin where once the Divine institution of marriage is neglected" (Calvin). Jacob began with polygamy, and is now drawn into concubinage. Though God overruled this for the development of the seed of Israel, he did not thereby condone the offense of either Jacob or Rachel.

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)

ותתן לו...לאשה. she provided Yaakov to be Bilhah’s exclusive sexual partner.

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 Bilhâh (“Bilhah”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “Bilhah” (Bilhâh) shape what this verse is saying?
How does Genesis 29:29, which shares the word «Bilhah», read alongside this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וַתִּתֶּן» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 9 Hebrew ↔ 14 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 2 words in this verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.