What Does Genesis 35:16 Mean in the King James?
And they journeyed from Beth-el; and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour.
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
A little distance left can still hold the hardest part of the passage.
THE MEANING
You can be near a threshold and still meet severe labor; the short remaining distance does not make the passage gentle. Birth and pain stay in the same frame, without pain proving that nothing is coming.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that being almost there means the hard part should already be over.
THE ROOT
וַתְּקַשׁ
vatteqash
GROWS FROM
קשה
q-sh-h
To be hard, difficult, or severe.
The Hebrew says the labor became hard, giving the difficulty its own force in the sentence. The root also describes what is difficult to bear, so the verse’s physical strain carries the full weight of that word.
ALSO GROWS
qāšeh: Hard, difficult, severe.
קָשֶׁה
This adjective makes clear that Rachel’s labor is described with the language of difficulty itself.
qāšāh: To be hard or difficult.
קָשָׁה
This verb form shares the root used for Rachel’s labor becoming hard.
וַתֵּלֶד
wattēled
GROWS FROM
ילד
y-l-d
To bear or beget; to give birth.
“travailed” in this verse is wattēled. The root for giving birth also grows into words for a child and for generations. The moment of strain stands at the entrance to a life that continues beyond it.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child.
יֶלֶד
The birth verb and the word for child share the same root, joining the act of bearing to the life being born.
tōledōt: Generations, lineage.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch shows how the root of one birth also names the generations that follow.
THE PATTERN
Nearness to an arrival does not cancel the hard labor of crossing its threshold.
A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the LORD shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.THE THREAD
Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it.Genesis uses the root קשה (q-sh-h), “to be hard,” for Rachel’s labor; Deuteronomy uses the same root for a matter too hard for someone to bear. The shared word lets bodily strain and overwhelming difficulty meet without erasing the physical pain in this verse.
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