What Does Genesis 29:6 Mean?
And he said to them, Is he whole? And they said, He is whole, and behold, Rachel his daughter is coming with the sheep.
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 he said unto them, Is he well? And they said, He is well: and, behold, Rachel his daughter cometh with the sheep.THE KEY
The answer is shalom (שָׁלוֹם, wholeness), and the next image makes it visible: Rachel, whose name means ewe, comes with the sheep.
THE MEANING
You hear the question as whether wholeness is with him; the answer is yes. Rachel then comes with the sheep, and her name means ewe, echoing the flock before it is named. The verse lets well-being sit inside a living scene of people and animals.
THE ROOT
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete; to bring something into a sound or fulfilled state.
Both occurrences of well render the same word, shalom, so the exchange asks whether wholeness is with Laban and answers with that same word. Its root family also describes what is whole and what is settled in full, giving the English well-being a resonance of completeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, welfare, peace.
שָׁלוֹם
This is the word asked about and repeated in the answer; here, well carries the sense of a person’s welfare and wholeness.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This adjective shares the same consonant root and makes the completeness inside the question about well-being more visible.
shillem: To repay, recompense, or settle in full.
שִׁלֵּם
This branch shows the root’s reach into what is brought to a full or settled state.
רָחֵל
Raḥel
GROWS FROM
רחל
r-ḥ-l
Ewe, a female sheep.
Rachel’s name is the Hebrew word for a ewe, so her name echoes the sheep she brings into view. The English leaves that name-to-flock connection hidden inside the scene.
ALSO GROWS
rāḥēl: Ewe, female sheep; also the name Rachel.
רָחֵל
The name and the animal are the same Hebrew word, so Rachel’s approach already echoes the flock.
rĕḥēleḵā: Your ewes (Genesis 31:38).
רְחֵלֶיךָ
This inflected form uses the same noun for actual flock animals, showing the ordinary animal meaning carried by the name.
THE PATTERN
Wholeness is a condition of life with others: it is asked after, kept, and given.
And he said to him, Go, I pray you, see whether there is wholeness with your brothers and wholeness with the flocks, and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.You will keep in wholeness upon wholeness the one whose shaped mind rests upon you, for in you he leans his full weight.Wholeness I leave with you; my wholeness I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be stirred, and do not let it shrink.THE THREAD
And he said to him, Go, I pray you, see whether there is wholeness with your brothers and wholeness with the flocks, and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.Genesis 29 asks whether shalom (שָׁלוֹם, wholeness and welfare) is with Laban; Genesis 37 uses the same word for the brothers and the flock. Together they open well beyond a private feeling: shalom can describe how people and living things are faring.
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