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22 So Laban invited all the people[a] of that place and prepared a feast. 23 In the evening he brought his daughter Leah[b] to Jacob,[c] and he slept with her.[d] 24 (Laban gave his female servant Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her servant.)[e]

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Footnotes

  1. Genesis 29:22 tn Heb “men.”
  2. Genesis 29:23 tn Heb “and it happened in the evening that he took Leah his daughter and brought her.”sn His daughter Leah. Laban’s deception of Jacob by giving him the older daughter instead of the younger was God’s way of disciplining the deceiver who tricked his older brother. D. Kidner says this account is “the very embodiment of anti-climax, and this moment a miniature of man’s disillusion, experienced from Eden onwards” (Genesis [TOTC], 160). G. von Rad notes, “That Laban secretly gave the unloved Leah to the man in love was, to be sure, a monstrous blow, a masterpiece of shameless treachery…It was certainly a move by which he won for himself far and wide the coarsest laughter” (Genesis [OTL], 291).
  3. Genesis 29:23 tn Heb “to him”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  4. Genesis 29:23 tn Heb “came to” or “approached,” a euphemism for sexual relations. See note at v. 21.
  5. Genesis 29:24 tn Heb “and Laban gave to her Zilpah his female servant, to Leah his daughter [for] a servant.” This clause gives information parenthetical to the narrative.

22 So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast.(A) 23 But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah(B) and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob made love to her. 24 And Laban gave his servant Zilpah(C) to his daughter as her attendant.(D)

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22 And Laban gathered together all the men of the place and (A)made a feast. 23 Now it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter and brought her to Jacob; and he went in to her. 24 And Laban gave his maid (B)Zilpah to his daughter Leah as a maid.

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