What Does Genesis 29:22 Mean?
And Laban gathered all the men of the place, and made a feast.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for “gathered” also carries the sense of “take away,” holding assembly and removal within one word.
THE MEANING
A feast gathers people into a shared occasion, with everyone present inside its meaning. The Hebrew verb for “gathered” also carries the sense of “take away,” so collection and removal meet in the verse’s central action.
THE ROOT
וַיֶּאֱסֹף
vayye’esof
GROWS FROM
אסף
to gather, collect, or take away
The verb here comes from אסף, whose range includes gathering people or produce and taking something away. English “gathered” emphasizes assembly, while the Hebrew root also holds the sense of removal.
ALSO GROWS
ve’asapta: to collect the land’s yield at harvest (Exodus 23:10)
וְאָסַפְתָּ
The same root gathers scattered produce into a collected whole.
take away: to take away; Rachel uses this verb when she says God has taken away her reproach (Genesis 30:23).
אָסַף
This branch shows that the root can express removal as well as assembly.
THE PATTERN
A feast turns a gathering into a shared occasion.
And in this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wines kept on their lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines kept on their lees, well strained.And Levi made a great feast for him in his house, and there was a great crowd of tax collectors and others reclining with them.THE THREAD
And she conceived and bore a son, and said, God has gathered away my reproach.The verb אסף (asaf, “gather” or “take away”) is the root behind both Laban’s gathering here and Rachel’s “taken away” there. The same word holds bringing together and removing within its range.
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