Discovery BoxGenesis 29:21-23 
Context29:21 Finally Jacob said 1 to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my time of service is up. 2 I want to have marital relations with her.” 3 29:22 So Laban invited all the people 4 of that place and prepared a feast. 29:23 In the evening he brought his daughter Leah 5 to Jacob, 6 and Jacob 7 had marital relations with her. 8
1 tn Heb “and Jacob said.”
2 tn Heb “my days are fulfilled.”
3 tn Heb “and I will go in to her.” The verb is a cohortative; it may be subordinated to the preceding request, “that I may go in,” or it may be an independent clause expressing his desire. The verb “go in” in this context refers to sexual intercourse (i.e., the consummation of the marriage).
4 tn Heb “men.”
5 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).
6 tn Heb “to him”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jacob) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
8 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.
