Genesis 30:3
But she said: I have here my servant Bala: go in unto her, that she may bear upon my knees, and I may have children by her.
Open Genesis 30:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- At illa : Habeo, inquit, famulam Balam : ingredere ad illam, ut pariat super genua mea, et habeam ex illa filios.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- εἶπεν δὲ Ῥαχὴλ τῷ Ἰακώβ Ἰδοὺ ἡ παιδίσκη μου Βάλλα, εἴσελθε πρὸς αὐτήν· καὶ τέξεται ἐπὶ τῶν γονάτων μου, ἵνα τεκνοποιήσωμαι κἀγὼ ἐξ αὐτῆς.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַתֹּ֕אמֶר הִנֵּ֛ה אֲמָתִ֥י בִלְהָ֖ה בֹּ֣א אֵלֶ֑יהָ וְתֵלֵד֙ עַל בִּרְכַּ֔י וְאִבָּנֶ֥ה גַם אָנֹכִ֖י מִמֶּֽנָּה
Haydock's commentary
Servant, like a maid of honour. Josephus says she was not a slave, no more than Zelpha.
My knees, whom I may nurse with pleasure. It was an ancient custom to place the new-born infants upon the knees of some near relation, who gave them a name, and thus in a manner adopted them. (Chap. l. 22[23, in some Bibles]; Job iii. 12; Psalm xxi. 11.) (Homer) (Calmet)
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 On Baptism, Against the Donatists, Chapter 10
14. Just as though their party gained the power of generation in virtue of what constitutes its division, and not from what causes its union with the Church. For it is severed from the bond of peace and charity, but it is joined in one baptism. And so there is one Church which alone is called Catholic; and whenever it has anything of its own in these communions of different bodies which are separate from itself, it is most certainly in virtue of this which is its own in each of them that it, not they, has the power of generation. For neither is it their separation that generates, but what they have retained of the essence of the Church; and if they were to go on to abandon this, they would lose the power of generation. …