Text -- Genesis 29:23 (NET)

29:23 In the evening he brought his daughter Leah to Jacob, and Jacob had marital relations with her.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Gen 29:23

¹ 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).

² tn Heb “to him”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn Heb “went in to her.” The expression “went in to” in this context refers to sexual intercourse, i.e., the consummation of the marriage.