What Does Genesis 31:35 Mean in the King James?
And she said to her father, Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women is upon me. And he searched, but found not the images.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for searching shares its root with a verb for disguising oneself, so concealment shadows Laban’s failed search.
THE MEANING
Rachel’s appeal to bodily privacy becomes a cover for deception: she says she cannot rise, and Laban finds nothing. The images remain present while the search ends, showing how an explanation can shape what another person thinks to inspect.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that what a search fails to find must be absent: the images remain there, concealed.
THE ROOT
וַיְחַפֵּשׂ
vayḥappēs
GROWS FROM
חפשׂ
To search out or investigate; in its reflexive form, to disguise oneself.
“searched” in this verse is vayḥappēs. This verse uses the searching sense, while another form of the same root means to disguise oneself. The word family holds searching and concealment together: a search can be real and still stop short of recognition.
ALSO GROWS
ḥippēs: He searched, examined, or sought out.
חִפֵּשׂ
This is the searching sense in the verse, where Laban investigates but does not find the images.
hitḥappēs: To disguise oneself.
הִתְחַפֵּשׂ
This reflexive form shares the root’s consonants and names self-disguise, the counterpoint to Laban’s attempt to uncover what is hidden.
THE PATTERN
A failed human search can leave what is hidden present, while other scriptures place hidden things within a wider horizon of disclosure.
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.THE THREAD
See therefore, and take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hideth himself, and come ye again to me with the certainty, and I will go with you: and it shall come to pass, if he be in the land, that I will search him out throughout all the thousands of Judah.The same Hebrew root חפשׂ (ḥāphaś, search out) describes a search aimed at someone’s hiding places. Together, the verses distinguish searching from finding: the search can be thorough in intent and still fail to reach what is concealed.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us