Genesis 29:26
Laban answered: It is not the custom in this place, to give the younger in marriage first.
Open Genesis 29:26 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Respondit Laban : Non est in loco nostro consuetudinis, ut minores ante tradamus ad nuptias.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- εἶπεν δὲ Λαβάν Οὐκ ἔστιν οὕτως ἐν τῷ τόπῳ ἡμῶν, δοῦναι τὴν νεωτέραν πρὶν ἢ τὴν πρεσβυτέραν·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֣אמֶר לָבָ֔ן לֹא יֵעָשֶׂ֥ה כֵ֖ן בִּמְקוֹמֵ֑נוּ לָתֵ֥ת הַצְּעִירָ֖ה לִפְנֵ֥י הַבְּכִירָֽה
Haydock's commentary
Custom. This appears to be a false pretext: for all the people saw that Rachel was adorned like the intended bride, (Haydock) and were invited to her wedding. (Menochius)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine Reply to Faustus the Manichæan, Faustus states his objections to the morality of the law and the prophets, and Augustin seeks by the application of the type and the allegory to explain away the moral difficulties of the Old Testament
52. Supposing that the two free wives point to the New Testament, by which we are called to liberty, what is the meaning of there being two? Perhaps because in Scripture, as the attentive reader will find, we are said to have two lives in the body of Christ, one temporal, in which we suffer pain, and one eternal, in which we shall behold the blessedness of God. We see the one in the Lord’s passion, and the other in His resurrection. The names of the women point to this meaning: It is said that Leah means Suffering, and Rachel the First Principle made visible, or the Word which makes the First Principle visible. The action, then, of our mortal human life, in which we live by faith, doing many painful tasks without knowing what benefit may result from them to those in whom we are interested, is Leah, Jacob’s first wife. And thus she is said to have had weak eyes. …